I hated the catechism. There — I said it. And I'm a pastor. If you grew up in a Lutheran school or went through confirmation class, there's a decent chance you know exactly what I'm talking about. The memory work, the explanations, the questions and answers, week after week, year after year. I could not wait to be done with it. I had a date circled in my mind: eighth grade confirmation. After that Sunday, I told myself, I am never opening that little book again.
What actually happened is the opposite of what I planned. And I think my story might say something useful to you — not just about a small paperback book, but about what it means to keep growing in faith across an entire lifetime.
Where It Started: Memory Work I Didn't Want to Do
I grew up attending Trinity Lutheran School in Manistee, Michigan. My parents made the decision to send me and my siblings there so that we would be taught the faith — not just on Sunday mornings, but every single day. And from very early on, that meant memory work. I don't have sharp memories of kindergarten, but by first and second grade I remember having to memorize Bible verses and the main sections of the catechism — the Ten Commandments, the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer. The basics. The pieces that form the skeleton of what Lutherans believe, teach, and confess.
At that age it was manageable, even if it wasn't exactly my favorite thing. But as I moved through the grades, the memory work shifted. It wasn't just the commandments themselves anymore — it was the explanations. Luther's careful, pastoral unpacking of what each piece means and how it applies to a life lived before God. And the explanations are longer. They're denser. They require more than rote repetition — they require you to actually think about what you're saying. Which, when you're ten or eleven years old and you'd rather be doing almost anything else, feels like an unreasonable demand.
By the time I was heading toward confirmation, I genuinely resented the catechism. It felt like homework that never ended, assigned by people who had decided this was important without ever really explaining to me why it should feel important. I was going through the motions. I was putting in the hours because I had to. And I was counting down to the finish line.
The Surprise Waiting for Me in College — and Again in Seminary
Imagine my frustration when I arrived at college to study Lutheran doctrine and the professor announced that we would be memorizing Luther's Small Catechism. Again. I had already done this. I had served my time. And yet here it was, back on my desk like an assignment I thought I'd turned in for good.
I pushed through it. I memorized it again. And honestly, at that point, it still hadn't clicked for me in any deep way. It was still an academic exercise, still something I was doing because the program required it. But then I got to seminary. And something changed.
At the seminary, I was studying everything at once — the Bible in its original languages, church history, systematic theology, pastoral practice, homiletics. My mind was full. And what I started to notice, almost without meaning to, was that the catechism kept showing up as a kind of organizing framework for everything else I was learning. When we talked about sin and grace, I could feel that conversation fitting naturally into the Ten Commandments section. When we discussed God's care for creation, I found myself thinking about the first article of the Apostles' Creed and the way Luther unpacks it. When we studied prayer, the Lord's Prayer was already there, already providing a map.
The catechism wasn't just a list of things to memorize anymore. It was starting to look like a structure — like the skeleton beneath the skin of everything I believed. All those doctrines I was studying, all those biblical texts I was working through, all those stories of God's faithfulness across centuries of church history — they were finding their places. And the catechism was helping me see where those places were.
Luther wrote the Small Catechism in the late 1520s — around 1529 — and I began to understand for the first time that what he had produced wasn't just a study tool for children. It was a gift to the church. A brilliant, carefully structured summary of the Christian faith designed not just to fill heads with information, but to shape people — to form the way they think about God, about themselves, about how to live. I had spent years resenting this book. At the seminary, I started to see it clearly for the first time.
What the Catechism Actually Does
Let me try to describe what I mean when I say the catechism became a different kind of tool for me — because I think this might help you see it differently too, whether you've been through catechesis yourself or you're thinking about it for someone in your family.
It's a Mirror
One of the ways I've come to use the catechism is as a mirror — particularly in preparation for confession. When I want to examine my conscience, when I want to come honestly before God and name what needs to be named, I go to the Ten Commandments. Not to run down a checklist mechanically, but to let those commandments do what they're designed to do: reveal who I actually am before a holy God. The commandments show me where I've failed to fear, love, and trust in God above all things. They show me where I've hurt my neighbor, where I've been dishonest, where I've served myself at someone else's expense. The mirror doesn't flatter. But that's the point — it prepares me for the grace that follows.
It's a Pocket Knife
One of the early names for the catechism — the Latin term is enchiridion — means something like a small dagger or a hand-held tool. The idea is that this is something you carry with you. Something useful in everyday situations. Something you can reach for when you need it. I almost always carry a pocket knife. Not because I spend my days in dramatic situations that require a blade, but because it's useful in a hundred small, ordinary moments that I can't always predict. The catechism works the same way. It gives you something to reach for — a grounding in the basics of the faith, a few key Bible verses attached to each section, a simple and clear articulation of what you believe and why. When someone asks you what you think about sin, or about God, or about what happens when we die, you're not left stammering. You have something in your hand.
It's a Mentor
The catechism is structured around questions: What is this? What does this mean? How is this done? Where is this written? That format isn't accidental. It's designed to teach you how to think — to form the habit of asking those questions about everything you encounter in the Christian life. And when you ask those questions, you're pushed back into the Scriptures. Luther gives you short, clear answers, but those answers are starting points, not stopping points. They're meant to send you deeper into the Word of God, to see the fullness of what God is giving and promising and doing.
That's ultimately what the catechism is for: it drives you back to Christ. Every section, every question, every answer is oriented toward faith — toward trusting God. You can see this in the very first commandment. We should have no other gods. And the explanation? That we should fear, love, and trust in God above all things. That word — trust — is the hinge on which the whole thing turns. When you get to the Creed, it's all about trusting that God does what He says. When you get to the Lord's Prayer, Luther says that with the words "Our Father," God tenderly invites us to believe and trust that He is our true Father, that He dearly loves us and cherishes us as beloved children. Everything points back to Jesus. Everything points back to faith. Everything points back to the Word where God meets us and works in us.
The Catechism Shaped More Than My Theology — It Shaped My Life
Here's something that surprised me as the years went on. The catechesis I received didn't just shape what I think about God — it shaped how I pray, how I talk to Him, the words and phrases that come naturally to me when I approach Him. I find myself returning to the Small Catechism as a stepping stone back into Scripture, as a way of taking hold of God's promises afresh and then speaking to Him out of what He has already spoken to me.
One phrase in particular has stayed with me for decades. It comes out of Luther's explanation of the Eighth Commandment — the way we used to translate it is that we are to put the best construction on everything. I remember sitting at the dinner table as a kid and hearing my dad quote that. My dad wasn't a pastor. He was an electrician. He wasn't delivering a theological lecture. He was just using language that had become part of how our family thought about how to treat other people. That phrase had done its work — it had moved from a memorized catechism explanation into the actual texture of daily life. That's what catechesis is supposed to do. It's supposed to reach all the way down into the ordinary moments and shape how you see them.
So over the years, the book I was so ready to be rid of at fourteen has become something else entirely. It's a bridge back to the Scriptures. It's a tether that keeps me connected to the faith. It's a companion I return to again and again, not because I've mastered it, but precisely because I haven't — and because every time I come back, I find more there than I saw before.
You Cannot Master This Book — and Neither Could Luther
I want to say something that I hope is genuinely freeing to hear. I have not mastered the Small Catechism. I cannot master it. I've memorized it multiple times. I've taught from it for years. And it still has more to give me than I have yet received from it.
And here's the thing: I am in very good company. Luther himself — the man who wrote the catechism — said that he could not master it. He had memorized it, he could recite it from beginning to end, but he knew that what the catechism requires is not merely head knowledge. It's a life. It's walking out these truths day after day in the actual, complicated, sometimes beautiful and sometimes painful circumstances of a human life. That's what Luther meant when he said he couldn't master it. It wasn't false modesty. It was an honest recognition that the catechism is always pointing you toward something bigger than itself — toward Christ, toward faith, toward the wrestling that belongs to anyone who is seriously trying to walk by faith in a world that pushes back.
And that wrestling is lifelong. My faith at five years old was real, but it was different from my faith at fourteen. My faith at fourteen was real, but it was different from where I am now at fifty-three. And God willing, my faith at eighty-eight will look different still — deeper, more tested, more rested in Him. That's not a problem with faith. That's how faith works. God is continually at work in us. He is teaching us His ways. We are learning to walk in His paths. That's what the life of faith looks like across an entire lifetime.
Catechesis Is Not Something You Finish
We have a cultural habit of treating catechesis as something you complete — a box to check somewhere between sixth grade and high school graduation, or maybe a four-hour Saturday class that gets you to the finish line. I understand why that habit developed. Life is busy. We front-load instruction when people are young and hope it sticks. And to be fair, there is a place for an intensive period of study that gives someone a solid foundation. That foundation matters.
But here's what I want you to hear clearly: the foundation is meant to be built upon. Catechesis is a lifelong journey, not a destination. It's not something you graduate from. It's something you grow into — year after year, season after season, as God continues to work in you through His Word and Sacraments.
What does that look like practically? It looks like being in church on Sunday — not just showing up and sitting in a pew, but coming to hear the Word proclaimed, to hear that your sins are forgiven, to receive the Sacrament of the Altar where God works in you to shape you and form you and give you life and salvation. It looks like your mind being transformed as you live in repentance. That word — repent — means to change one's mind. It's not a one-time event. It's the posture of a whole life, continually turning back toward God as He continually draws you to Himself.
It looks like coming to Bible study — and if you come to one of my Bible studies, I'll warn you right now, you're not getting away from the catechism. I'm constantly taking us back there, citing parts of it to help us understand what God's Word is saying and what it means for how we live. It looks like reading good books — or listening to them, if reading is a challenge. I want to say something gently here to some of you: the statistics on how many men never read another book after finishing high school are genuinely sobering. I'm not saying that to shame anyone. I understand that reading feels harder for some people than for others, and that life makes demands on your time and energy. But if the words on a page are a barrier, try listening. There are excellent recordings of excellent books. Augustine's Confessions. Good theology written for ordinary believers. Sermons. Podcasts from pastors who will take you deeper into the Word. There are more on-ramps available to us today than at any point in church history. Use them.
Catechesis also looks like finding mentors. Titus 2 describes exactly this kind of community: older men helping younger men to walk by faith, older women helping younger women to live the life of faith. Having people who come alongside you, who have walked with God longer than you have and who can speak into your life out of that experience — that is not optional. That is part of how God intends faith to be transmitted and sustained across generations.
And catechesis is practice. It's confession — confessing your sins, confessing your faith, confessing the hope you have in Jesus. It's learning to pray, to speak to God after He has spoken to you in His Word. And it's learning to speak this faith toward others, because if these are the words of eternal life, and the way a person receives those words is through hearing them proclaimed, then we want the people around us to hear them. We want them drawn to Jesus to receive this everlasting life.
Keep Coming Back to Where God Works
When I think about catechesis — when I think about what it means to live this eternal life in a temporal world — the thing I most want to say to you is this: keep growing. Keep coming back to where God works to shape and form you. He is delivering His grace to you. He is giving you new life, life of the Spirit. And that life is going to show up in how you actually live — in how you treat your neighbor, how you handle your money, how you pray at the end of a hard day, what you say when someone is hurting, what you reach for when you need something solid to stand on.
God is at work in you. That is not a pious platitude — it's a promise. And catechesis is one of the primary ways He has given us to keep that work going, to keep returning to the Word, to keep trusting what He has said, to keep walking in the paths He is teaching us.
I was fourteen years old and I couldn't wait to be done with that little book. Today I wouldn't know how to be a pastor — or a Christian — without it. That change didn't happen in a moment. It happened over decades of God patiently working on a stubborn student. Which raises a question worth sitting with: Where are you in that journey? And what would it look like, this week, to take one step back toward the Word — whether that's opening the catechism again, showing up to Bible study, finding an older believer who can walk alongside you, or simply kneeling down and praying the Lord's Prayer slowly enough to mean it?
Comments