Crazy for the Catechism

A couple of nights ago I was home with just Faith and Zeke; leading them through family worship reminded me of our earliest parenting days worshipping at home together with very young children. It was very different than our practice today.

My earliest memory of teaching Eli about God must be from when he was around 2 or 3 years old. The Sunday school curriculum included the First Catechism and simple Scripture memory and we would work on that through the week. Bath time became the main memory-work time. Later we added the ever popular "Candy Game".

The Candy Game is played by setting out a row of Smarties with a lollipop at the end of the line. For each catechism question answered correctly Eli could advance down the line eating a piece a candy. I saved the lollipop for something big like reciting a brief version of the 10 commandments with me or the Lord's Prayer, etc.

At another church it was common to play Catechism freeze-tag. When frozen you'd be asked a question from the First Catechism and couldn't be unfrozen until it was answered correctly. We Presbyterians are crazy for the Catechism. But I'm fully convinced that this is something worthy of being crazy about.

Family worship has been on my mind a lot lately. The busyness of life is a constantly encroaching threat to a time of daily worship together. Avoiding turning family worship into an empty rite is another threat. I look forward to sharing some final thoughts on this subject with those at church when we finish our current book study, Thoughts on Family Worship, this week.