Resources For Family Worship (Part 3)

Today I'm finishing our little series on resources for family worship. I've covered resources for families with younger children HERE and older children HERE. Today I thought I'd finish up looking at some Catechisms and resources to help and encourage parents. As I looked back on what has been reviewed I realise that this has been far from comprehensive as there are so many other good resources out there!

Over the course of the series I have looked at different books that help explain the Bible to children. However it is amazing how much of the Bible children can grasp by being read it alone. One mother, Carrie Ward decided that she was going to read through the entire Bible to her young children. In Together:Growing Appetites For God Carrie outlines in a down to earth manner how she did it and offers lots of practical encouragement for other Mothers who want to do the same.
She also did a great series recently on Revive Our Hearts.

Catechisms

I grew up on the Catechism and I really can't over emphasise what an amazing blessing it was to my life! Initially we used the Child's Catechism which is published by the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. Basically it is just a series of very basic questions split into two sections, the first 129 questions are entitled 'History' and are basically questions on Bible stories, the second section is entitled 'Doctrine' and has 46 questions covering issues such as 'Who is God?' and the sacraments. For little ones it is a blessing to have such a grounding in the Bible which can be easily recalled.

Another popular Catechism type book is 'My First Book of Questions and Answers'. Perhaps a little more in depth that the Child's Catechism it covers many of the same topics with an especial focus on Doctrine and also has a Bible reference at the end of each answer. 

When we finished the Child's Catechism we moved onto the Shorter Catechism. Personally I learnt it in the traditional version, however sometimes it meant that I rhymed things off by heart that I wasn't fully sure what they meant! In recent years our church has used the Westminster Shorter Catechism in Modern English which has faithfully updated the  language for a new day. It is such a wonderful summary of the Reformed Faith and is something, which if learnt properly can be brought back to memory throughout life in all sorts of situations when wanting to recall truth.

If your still not sure about teaching children a Catechism there is a great book published by P&R called 'Rediscovering Catechism'. It explains to families and churches alike why the learning of a catechism is important and how to practically go about teaching it. It is packed full of resources and outlines different Catechisms available.