Showing posts with label catechism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label catechism. Show all posts
Sunday, September 26, 2010
A Westminster Boy
Eli finished memorizing the Westminster Shorter Catechism today. He has an impressive memory and I trust that the years we spent working through the 107 questions of the WSC will be formative for the rest of his life.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Over Mt Sinai
For those parents that plan on teaching their children the Westminster Shorter Catechism, here are a few fresh memorization tips.
You'll need to prepare for a long hike over Mt Sinai; to get through the 10 commandments you'll cover 42 questions. Two of my children have been bogged down here for months; but one has made it through and for that I'm thankful. The material is wonderfully applicable to everyday situations.
Two tips on a positive note. First, try to catechize your older children in the presence of the younger ones. You'll find that the younger children will already be familiar with the material when they get to it, and in some cases already have it memorized without any direct catechizing.
Second, once you get far along in the catechism you'll need large blocks of time to get through the material. To help keep the boys' attention we toss a ball back and forth between the question and answer. Some weeks to save time we'll just do the even numbered questions, the odd ones, or every third one.
We've been at this for years now and the only two regrets I have is that I haven't been as faithful as I could have been and I haven't been able to talk about the answers as much as I like. I hope to remedy that second regret in the years ahead.
You'll need to prepare for a long hike over Mt Sinai; to get through the 10 commandments you'll cover 42 questions. Two of my children have been bogged down here for months; but one has made it through and for that I'm thankful. The material is wonderfully applicable to everyday situations.
Two tips on a positive note. First, try to catechize your older children in the presence of the younger ones. You'll find that the younger children will already be familiar with the material when they get to it, and in some cases already have it memorized without any direct catechizing.
Second, once you get far along in the catechism you'll need large blocks of time to get through the material. To help keep the boys' attention we toss a ball back and forth between the question and answer. Some weeks to save time we'll just do the even numbered questions, the odd ones, or every third one.
We've been at this for years now and the only two regrets I have is that I haven't been as faithful as I could have been and I haven't been able to talk about the answers as much as I like. I hope to remedy that second regret in the years ahead.
Monday, March 02, 2009
Isaiah wows his football coach
Basketball season is over and football practices have begun. In Isaiah's league they have a brief devotional at the end of each practice. Tonight his coach asked the group of mostly 6-year olds, "What is God?". I guess he wasn't expecting anyone to shoot back with the answer to the 4th question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism*. The coach was stunned by Isaiah's barrage of words and had him repeat them, to which he said rather dumbstruck, "that's a really good answer."
*The catechism's answer to the question, "What is God?", is:
God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.
*The catechism's answer to the question, "What is God?", is:
God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)