Why Use Martin Luther's Small Catechism in Your Home?

What Luther Imagined.

Martin Luther, when writing the Small Catechism originally, did not imagine that when people in the future would consider this little book, they would think first and foremost of an old pastor teaching a bunch of fidgety teenagers in a classroom in a church basement.  He imagined it would be used first and foremost in the home, one generation passing along the treasure of the faith to another.  He wrote before each part, “As the head of the family should teach in a simple way to his household.”

But in one sense, it doesn’t matter what Luther imagined.  It matters what you imagine.  How do you view this little book of questions and answers about our Christian faith?  Is it just a resource that every person has to master once during their life as a Lutheran to prove their confession of faith true?  Or could you envision it being the centerpiece of how you raise your children in the faith – how you nourish your family spiritually in your home day by day?  Let me try to make that latter option much more likely than perhaps it is right now.

Fulfill your calling as a parent.

Why should you use the Small Catechism in your home?  Well, first it helps you do what God has given you to do when he made you a parent.  Always in the Scriptures, the passing along of the faith is spoken of as an activity which centers in the life of the family.  Deuteronomy 6:7 says, “You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”

Fathers in particular are told to raise up their children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4). We also have the beautiful examples of mothers doing this work as well (2 Timothy 1:5). Luther says in a series of sermons he wrote as a companion to the catechism that parents should consider this to be the chief duty of their calling as parents.  Not even making sure their children were educated or fed was to take priority over this duty.  If one did not do it, they should not consider themselves to be faithful Christians. Passing along the faith to the children entrusted to them by their Heavenly Father should be the prime concern of their parenting.

Keep it simple, Saint of God.

The catechism is a simple way to teach the faith.  There are many things you can do in the home that are spiritually beneficial.  But out of all of them, using the catechism is perhaps the simplest of them all.  There need not be a large amount of preparation before using this little book. No particular skill is needed to serve as the instructor.  This is, after all, just a little book of questions and answers. 

Simply ask the question given and read together the answer with the one you wish to teach.  Do it again.  You are now teaching the faith.  You are doing the very thing you were not sure you could accomplish.  You are doing the thing perhaps no one ever modeled for you or taught you to do.  The catechism instructs you how to teach even as you instruct those in your home.

Passing through the various parts of the catechism can also help give shape to a more robust devotional life in the home.  The topics being covered each day can lead to discussion and memorization of verses that establish these teachings, hymns that sings of them, and prayers that accompany them.  Letting the catechism determine the topic for the day makes being regular at this work that much easier.

Perfect for all ages and abilities.

Consider that this little book is perfect for multigenerational settings like the home. There are portions so simple that even the youngest speakers and readers can claim them as their own with mastery.  There are parts so deep that the most mature and experienced Christian will still be captivated by meditation upon them.  There is a rhythm to it all that binds every one of every age and ability together.

Shape how your household views the world.

This little book is not only to be a collection of individual teachings but a system of truths that shape the mind.  As the catechism is learned piece by piece, how one views the world is being molded and solidified.  Each question not only stands alone but rests upon the others to form a steady base from which godly discernment can occur. Topics not specifically covered in the questions and answers given in the catechism are able to be pondered rightly by those who know well the framework of the catechism.  

This is a needed measure for all of us who interact to various degrees with the unbelieving world. We are constantly being asked, demanded even, to change our opinions on various issues.  But that is not all. We are being encouraged and sometime manipulated into changing the very assumptions that undergird our whole way of thinking.  The catechism teaches us the boundaries of truth so that we will not fall into error accidentally.

Everything needful.

The catechism is enough for salvation and life.  Obviously, the catechism is not a replacement for the Scriptures. It is a quick summary of all that the Bible teaches. It does not cover the breadth and width and depth of all that is given in the Sacred Writings. And yet, amazingly, given its brief nature, it does cover everything necessary for salvation and life.

It teaches right from wrong, righteousness from unrighteousness through the Commandments. Convicted of our sin, it shows us our saving God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who did everything necessary to rid us of our sin and makes us holy in his Son.  It teaches us what we truly need even as it teaches us to ask God for those things in prayer. 

It teaches us about Holy Baptism through which God connects us to Jesus’ saving death and resurrection. It drives us to the forgiveness given out in Holy Absolution. It beckons us to the Altar to eat the Holy Supper where the true presence of Christ’s body and blood gives and sustains in us eternal life. 

There are even small sections that teach us how to live in our various callings in life, how to pray, and how to examine ourselves to prepare for coming to Christ’s altar. There is more to learn to be sure that the catechism does not breach, but nothing necessary for salvation and life in Christ is left out of this little book.

It points to Jesus.

Imagine using the catechism in your home lastly because it always points those who use it to Jesus.  No matter where you find yourself reading and reciting from, the catechism leads you to the cross of Jesus to find your ultimate comfort and hope.  And in your home, what else do you need?

Imagination into reality.

Can you imagine it?  Good.  The next step is to bringing that thought into reality.  Open up the catechism.  Grab a resource that helps you go through it in a regular way.  Imagine it and then do it.

Download this explanation as a printable PDF file to share with others or read offline:

Catechism in the Home

Into Maturity - A New Free Resource for Training up Children in the Faith

Faith like a child. That’s what Christians are supposed to aspire to, right? Well, yes and no. It’s true that God’s Word encourages us to receive the Kingdom of God like a child (Mark 10:15). And Jesus encourages adults to humble themselves like children (Matthew 18:4). However, God’s Word also exhorts us to grow and mature. Peter encourages those he writes to “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 3:18). Paul says that the ministry he and other conducted included “warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom,” that they might “present everyone mature in Christ.” (Colossians 1:28).

This new series of resources which we call Into Maturity we are offering to you now was put together with that very truth in mind – God wants us to grow and mature in wisdom, in knowledge, and in Christ. That’s something that all of God’s children can and should strive for, and so these bible studies can be used by Christians of various ages.

However, these studies were especially created for those seeking to train in the faith young people who are familiar with Luther’s Small Catechism but want to grow in their thinking, especially as it relates to the world’s influence on one’s thinking in comparison to how God’s Word shapes our thinking and faith.

These resources can be used in any order or even individually, but it is recommended that the series be done in the following order: 1) Our Questions; 2) God’s Answers; 3) Words Matter; 4) Living Planted. If this order is followed, participants will see how questions that are quite common among people are answered by God’s Truth. Then they will further consider God’s Truth compared to the confusing messages and definitions that our world gives today. Lastly, they will explore how the truth of God not only shapes and informs one’s thinking, but also what we say and do each day.

We pray that this series will be a blessing for you and your family, for you and the members of your youth group, or for you as you study with other Christians, seeking to grow “Into Maturity” in Christ Jesus our Lord.

While the entire series is available now to download individually on our resources page, or here as one large zip file, we plan to blog over the comings weeks about each part of this resource so you understand them better.

If you would consider sharing this information on social media or in person with others, we would appreciate it. Stay up with all of our work by following us on our Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/livingplanted.

Why, God? Our Questions, Job's Questions. Free Study!

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So many things in life bring questions.  We watch the news and wonder why something so awful has happened.  We hear a report from about a family member and are baffled as to why God has allowed this.  Life and the question "Why?" seem all too natural companions. 

In a recent blog post we introduced our new series of resources called Into Maturity and made available the first four Bible studies in that series. We call these studies Our Questions and they focus in on the questions we often have in life. Our approach is to talk about those questions in the context of the book of Job. 

Today's blog will tell you a little bit about the first of these studies. You can download it here. This study begins by asking for a discussion about the questions that we all have in life. We might ask why God allowed something to happen in our world. We might wonder why it seems to us that God has not answered one of our prayers. We may feel that from our perspective something does not seem fair and question why it is that way.

This study then takes us into the first three chapters of the book of Job. By engaging the Scriptures, we are introduced to the righteous man Job and his way of life. We then find ourselves listening to a conversation between God and Satan regarding Job where Satan suggests that Job will deny God if certain blessings are removed from. Next, we watch as those blessings are removed. While Job remains remarkably faithful in the face of the tragedies he endures, that does not mean that he does not have his own set of questions. Our study ends by noting that Job's questions are much like our questions, centering in on the question, "Why?"

The next study will pick up right where this one left off. All of our resources are formatted to be easy to download and print. In particular, with these studies you will note that they are designed as leader's guides, meaning the answer to every question is given after the question. Our intention is that whoever is leading this would print out their copy and lead the people through the questions. Having children or others in the home read the portions of Scripture from Job would be great.

We hope that you will look at these studies and see if they might help you to further train up your children in the home and to strengthen your own faith and understanding of the love that God has for us in Christ Jesus.  Any suggestions on how these resources could be more helpful are welcomed and can be left in the comments section of the blog. We also truly appreciate when you share one of our blogs to help us get these free resources into more people's hands.

Another Shooting - Talk about it in your home - FREE RESOURCE

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"Texas Church Killings: What We Know and Don’t Know" reads the headline on a popular news website.  In the wake of another senseless act of violence, people want to know why in the hope that such violence can be thwarted in the future.

Well, here are two things we do know.  The reports are clear that this shooter like many of these killers isolated himself from other people.  Secondly, we know that violence is the result of evil in the world.

We have two resources that can help you talk about such issues in your home.

First is a warning to all about the danger of isolation.  Click here for that resource. 

Second is a piece that exposes the connection between evil, violence, and death.  Click here for that resource.

Both are PDF files formatted to be printed on normal 8 1/2 by 11 paper. 

Please feel free to share this post to help others as well.

Into Maturity - Our Questions - The Book of Job

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As we mentioned in a former blog, we at LivingPlanted.com believe all teaching of the faith in the home is good and laudable.  God will use even the most spontaneous teaching moments.  And yet, we should not allow that truth to justify taking a haphazard approach to the calling to train up our children.

That is why we are happy to introduce the first set of resources in our Into Maturity series called “Our Questions.”  It is a four session Bible Study looking at the book of Job.   It examines the fact that much of life leaves us with questions and yet encourages us to trust God alone for answers rather than simply allowing our reason and speculation to run wild.

We sit with Job and admittedly resonate with his questions and then are rebuked with him as God reminds us of his power, might, and love towards his creation.

We are uploading all four sessions right away so you can work through them at your pace in your setting.  We will also be weekly posting a brief summary of each session to take you through the resource part by part.  If you are using these resources, we would appreciate you leaving feedback on our Facebook page or in the comments section below.  Also, we really rely on you to help us spread the word about these resources.  Please share our links and talk about them with others seeking to live The Christian Life at Home.

Download the new resources by clicking below or by clicking on "Our Questions" at our resource page.

God’s Questions – Session One

God’s Questions – Session Two

God’s Questions – Session Three

God’s Questions – Session Four

As always our resources are in pdf format to make it easy to use them.  These resources are prepared as leader's guides with answers to the questions provided.  Just click and print on normal printer paper.

The Vegas Shooting - Talk about it in your home. Free PDF resource to help.

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You woke up to terrible news.  Maybe your children did also.  How do you talk in your home about something so horrific?  Well, start with the basics. While those who have actual authority in the situation do their investigations and while the political pundits seek to spin the news one way or another, teach your children about good and evil. Teach them that what we saw today is evil's true face.  Teach them that Jesus came to conquer such evil through His cross and resurrection.  Teach them to rely on Him when evil abounds. Bring the Good News of Jesus into the story we heard on the news.  We at LivingPlanted.com have developed a one-page PDF resource to help you have those conversations in your home. Click here to be taken directly to the PDF entitled "The Face of Evil" or click here to see all of the one-page PDF resources we have available to help you talk about the news of the day in light of the Good News of Jesus.

 

Into Maturity is coming - Subscribe now! Resources to thoughtfully train your child in the faith.

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Truth be told, a lot of life happens without much thought. Things happen and we respond. But when we have time to reflect, we must admit usually those random responses are not helpful in achieving goals that we might have in life. No one ever builds a barn through random responses. No one becomes a doctor through random responses. And no one trains up their child in the faith well through random responses.

Certainly, there is value to what is learned as children watch their parents respond to life as it comes at them. But to believe that this alone will well prepare their child to live as a child of God right in the midst of a world so well-aligned against the truth of God would be foolish.

We at LivingPlanted.com believe a thoughtful approach to Christian life at home is the best way to prepare our children to live that same life both inside of the homes they will lead one day and out in the world as well. This belief is based on God's insistence that letting His word dwell richly within us is critical to how the Spirit sustains us in the faith. We also know that finding time to be thoughtful about these things can be challenging. We hope to serve you by producing resources thoughtfully crafted to help you in your work of training up your children.

We believe that daily devotions are the most important thing you can do with your children in your home. If you have not been doing this, please check out our core resource which will help you get started right away. Families should read together, pray together, memorize together, and sing together each day. But we also believe that training up children must go beyond the things we suggest in that resource.

We are currently in the process of working on some resources that will help you do just that in a thoughtful way. We are working on resources we call “Into Maturity.” These are resources meant to help engage your child with the Word in a way that prepares them for real life interaction with the world they are and will be experiencing. A resource on the book of Job will help us think about how we deal with the questions we and others have about life in this world. A resource that is filled with the Scriptures will help us be reminded of God's truth, His answers, to the challenges the devil, the world, and the flesh constantly throw at us Christians. A resource looking at particular words from the Scriptures will remind us to speak about those words in the ways the Spirit does in his Word.

Our first resource based on the book of Job will be ready for you in the next two weeks. The best way to make sure you do not miss it is to subscribe to this blog or like our Facebook page. If you are using any of our resources, we would love to hear any feedback you might have. May God bless you as you live out the Christian Life At Home.

Updated FREE Plan for Family Devotions (New Hymn Selections) - Please Share

As we wrote in a former blog post, we at Living Planted believe that singing together as a family is an important part of gathering the family around God and His Word each day. Singing helps place God's eternal truth into our minds and hearts like almost nothing else can do.

However, we understand that the thought of singing in a small group can be rather daunting for some people. And so, we decided to try to go back and make sure the hymns we suggested using both match the theme for the day and yet also were the most singable tunes we could find.

We are proud to announce that a new version of our core resource is now on the website with an updated hymn selection. Obviously, if the first version is working fine for your family, you can continue to use it. But if you are starting new, we would encourage using this new version of this resource.

Also, we want to make clear, that we understand what one family or small group might find singable differs from another.  We have found this to be true even as we discuss our recommendations among ourselves.  So, if there is a hymn that your family simply does not seem to be able to sing, choose another one you might already know that goes with the theme.  If you can not think of one, simply choose any hymn and continue to sing. We believe that it is better to sing something even if it does not go with the theme for the day then to simply skip what God calls us to do by singing. Again, we believe that the Scriptures are full of evidence that God intends for His people to always be singing about Him, His ways, and His Son Jesus.

We would love it also if you would share this blog post to make more people aware of this free resource that they can use in their homes. Also, keep an eye on our site and blog. While there has not been a lot of activity recently, have no doubt we are working on more resources to help you live the Christian Life at home.

What Christians do with Outrage? (in light of Orlando) Talk about it at home.

The story has been everywhere and rightfully so.  A Muslim man enters a nightclub frequently mostly by those who identify themselves as LBGT and opens fire.  The reports say that at least part of the motive was his outrage over homosexual affection he had seen around him in public.  No one knows whether this outrage found Islamic extremism or whether Islamic extremism found this outrage.  Regardless the two came together and this man chose mass violence to manifest his outrage and ideology.  Some are suggesting that this is just the natural outcome of anyone who is "extreme" about their religion.  Those who will not give up any of their beliefs are being painted as hateful people just waiting to explode.  But this simply is not true.  Especially for those in Christ.

It is true.  All of us get outraged at times. We see someone else do something that is particularly repugnant in our eyes. Our pulse rises, our blood pressure rises, and we want to act. Sometime our rage is directed at something that is evil. Other times we get so upset just because we selflessly want something to be different than it is.

But what do we do with that anger? Well, regardless of the inspiration for it, we are to take that anger to the one true God, the Triune God.

Our latest resource at Living Planted expands on this thought.  There are all sorts of issues worthy of discussion that have been touched by the news this weekend.  We hope to help you at least begin those conversations with this resource.  This is one of our Good News resources that tries to help you take events from the new into your home in a way that fosters godly conversations.  Check out all of the Good New resources at this page.  You can also like us on Facebook.

Thinking Through Severe Storms as Christians - FREE RESOURCE

Especially in the center of our country, the storms just keep coming. And these types of storms are very good at capturing everyone's attention.  The loud thunder, the bolts of electrically charged light, and the poundings of various sorts of precipitation demand to be heard and seen.  But when they have our attention, what are we to think about?  Should our thoughts extend only as high as the clouds or beyond?

Is the weather a force largely under God's control?  Is there a Mother Nature that controls all of these things?  Is it all just the result of a bunch of complex variables that one day the scientists will finally understand?

The Scriptures would suggest that God is no doubt at work when weather captures our attention.  He uses it to his ends, namely calling all to repentance and faith.  Help your family understand this oft forgotten truth with Living Planted's newest Good News Resource on God's use of such events for our eternal good.  Each Good news resource in available to download as a single page pdf file.  Download it and print it out and you are ready to discuss this truth with those living in your home.  Check out our other resources as well.  And don't forget to like us on Facebook.