Renewing Catechesis and Discipleship
Teaching, Learning and Living the Faith in the Contemporary Church
Information and Readings for Auditors
Course Syllabus
Required Texts
Heywood, David. Kingdom Learning: Experiential and Reflective Approaches to Christian Formation. London: SCM Press, 2017.
Course Location
The first class is on Wednesday 10 September at 7pm in classroom 212 in the Larkin building.
Zoom Link
If you are joining us online, please use the following link:
Week 1: Course Introduction
Topics
- Course methodology
- Contemporary issues and problematics (including bridging theology and parish, demographic realities and rise of ‘nones’, challenges of post-Christendom church, overcoming clericalism/professionalisation of ministry)
- Underlying principles of Christian pedagogy and learning
- Purpose of adult catechesis: empowering mature Christian disciples
- Discipleship and ministry
- Ministry in the whole of life
- Investigating the development and landscape of our secular age
- Application of Charles Taylor’s secularisation thesis
Required Reading
Before our first class discussion, please read the following introduction to our course text:
Further Reading
- Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Belknap Press, 2007) or James K.A. Smith, How (Not) to Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor (Eerdmans, 2014)
- Gerald Sittser, “The Early Church Thrived Amid Secularism and Shows How We Can, Too,” Christianity Today (16 October 2019)
- Angie Thirston and Casper ter Kuile, How We Gather
Week 1 Recording
Week 2: Context of the Contemporary Church: Challenges and Opportunities
Topics
- Postmodern influences
- Nothing outside the text? Derrida, deconstruction and scripture
- Where have all the metanarratives gone? Lyotard, postmodernism and the Christian story
- Power/knowledge/discipline: Foucault and the possibilities of a postmodern church
- Effects of relativism and pragmatism
- Community as context: Wittgenstein on ‘meaning as use’
- Who’s afraid of contingency? Owning up to our creaturehood with Rorty
- Reasons to believe: Making faith explicit after Brandom
Required Reading
This week’s class will consist of a full lecture and class discussion around critiques of modernity (specifically, of rationalism and autonomous individualism) through the lenses of various key thinkers of the 20th century (Derrida, Lyotard, Foucault, Wittgenstein, Rorty, and Bradom). There are no readings to prepare but it would be helpful to review the content summary of each thinker provided on the following page.
As you consider this content, our main questions will be:
- If we take seriously these critiques of modernity (and especially of a Christianity wedded to and distorted by modernity), what should the church do?
- What would the church look like, particularly in terms of learning, teaching, and living the faith?
Background Reading
- James K.A. Smith, Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?
- James K.A. Smith, Who’s Afraid of Relativism?
- Paul Lakeland, Postmodernity: Christian Identity in a Fragmented Age
Week 2 Recording
Week 3: New Testament Foundations and Models
Topics
- Learning from Jesus and his ‘action-reflection’ approach
- Discipling model of the early church
- Personal and corporate identity transformation
- Conformity to Christ and practical wisdom (phronesis)
- Evaluating discipleship as an educational practice for today’s church
Required Reading
- Heywood, pp 25-38 (first part of chapter 1, “Following Jesus”)
Further Reading
- Sylvia Collinson, Making Disciples: The Significance of Jesus’ Educational Methods for Today’s Church (Wipf and Stock, 2007)
Week 3 Recording
Week 4: Early Christian Foundations and Models
Topics
- Critical engagement with the tradition of catechetical teaching, liturgical mystagogy and Christian formation in the early church
- Applicability of models within early tradition to the contemporary church
Required Reading
Choose one of the following four texts from the early church:
- Didache: The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles
- Epistle from a Disciple to Diognetus
- Clement of Alexandria, The Paedagogus (Christ the Educator), Book I, chapters 7 & 12
- Cyril of Jerusalem, Procatechesis and Mystagogical Catecheses 1 to 3
What does the text describe or imply about catechesis and discipleship (in both approach and methods) in the early period of the church? How does this compare to the working definition and principles of discipling discussed in week 3 (and as summed up by Heywood and Collinson)?
Optional Background/Further Resources
- Angie Thirston and Casper ter Kuile, How We Gather
- Dr Andrew Root, Ministry in a Secular Age podcast, “Preachers vs Peleton”
Week 4 Recording
Week 5: Adult Learning in God's Kingdom
Topics
- The adult learner and the kingdom of God
- Visions of adult learning
- Characteristics of adult learning
- Recovery of virtue and character
- Learning character
- ‘Teleological way of life’ (aka ‘virtue ethics’) — narrative, telos, community, mentoring, practice and virtue — as a model of formation
Required Reading
- Heywood, pp 38-71 (remainder of chapter 1, “The Adult Learner” and “The Recovery of Virtue”)
Background Reading
Week 5 Recording
Week 6: Learning to Connect Life and Faith
Topics
- Theological reflection and learning, Christian formation
- ‘Pastoral cycle’
- Use of narrative in pastoral practice
Required Reading
- Heywood, chapter 2, pp 75-116
- Malcolm, Lois, and Janet L Ramsey, “On Forgiveness and Healing: Narrative Therapy and the Gospel Story” in Word & World 30 (1) (2010): 23–32
Further Reading
- Mary Clark Moschella, Ethnography as a Pastoral Practice: An Introduction (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2008)
- Mark Yaconelli, Between the Listening and the Telling: How Stories Can Save Us (Minneapolis: Broadleaf Books, 2022)
Week 6 Recording
Week 7: Leading the Learning Community
Topics
- Experiential learning
- Planned programmes vs learning in the life of the church
- Church as community ‘practice’ (cf MacIntyre) integrating knowledge, skills and virtues in unified whole
- The process of transformative learning
- Forming a learning community
- Cultural and intercultural aspects of community learning
Required Reading
Asynchronous class only so no recording.
Week 8: Learning for Ministry Together
Topics
- Learning ministry as a ‘community practice’
- Reimagining leadership, knowledge and theology to meet new challenges
- Shared Christian praxis
- Discussion of catechetical/Christian formation project (scope, format, and other requirements)
Required Reading
- Heywood, pp 179-220 (chapter 4)
- Jane Regan, “Communities of Transformative Learning” (part 2, chapters 3-4), from Toward an Adult Church: A Vision of Faith Formation (Chicago: Loyola Press, 2002), pp 71-142
- Jane Regan, “Adult Formation in the Faith Community” (part 3, chapters 5-7), from Toward an Adult Church: A Vision of Faith Formation (Chicago: Loyola Press, 2002), pp 143-208
Background Information
Information on “Belbin team roles” referred to in Heywood:
Week 8 Recording
Week 9: Liturgy: Narrative, Embodied Participation, and Formation
Topics
- Liturgy as narrative signification
- Formative power of enacted narrative
- Transformation through embodied participation
- Reflective formation: re-cognition and re-narration
Required Reading
- Susan Wood, “Participatory Knowledge of God in the Liturgy,” Studia Liturgica 29, no 1 (1999): 29-52
- David Stosur, “Narrative Signification and the Paschal Mystery: Liturgy, Participation, and Hermeneutics,” Questions Liturgiques 96, no. 1–2 (2015): 41–63
- James K.A. Smith, “Restor(y)ing the World: Christian Formation for Mission,” chapter 4 of Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013
Further Reading
- “Is Liturgy Working? James K. A. Smith and Geoffrey Ready on Secularization, Pluralism, and Christian Formation,” The Wheel 28/29 (Winter/Spring 2022): 20-34
- Geoffrey Ready, “Towards a New Mystagogy,” chapter 2 of Living God’s Story: Strengthening Liturgical Participation and Christian Formation through the Renewal of Enacted Narrative in the Orthodox Divine Liturgy
Model of Narrative Liturgical Formation
Week 9 Recording
Week 10: Christian Life as Faithful Improvisation
Topics
- Christian life as improvised enacted drama
- Skills for life: forming habits, assessing status, accepting and blocking, questioning givens, receiving gifts (overaccepting), and reincorporating the lost
Required Reading
- Samuel Wells, “Improvisation in the Theatre as a Model for Christian Ethics” from Faithful Performances: Enacting Christian Tradition (London: Routledge, 2016), pp. 147-165
Prerecorded Lecture (Audio Only)
Further Reading
- Samuel Wells, Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics (Baker Academic, 2018)
Week 10 Recording
Week 11: 'Being With' and Nurturing Faith in Children and Young People
Topics
- ‘Being With’ Christian formation programme
- Discipleship and children
- Critical evaluation of ‘Sunday school’
- Model of the ‘Catechesis of the Good Shepherd’
- God and the child
- Education to wonder and the kingdom of God
- Moral formation, method of signs, and anthropological catechesis
- Whole person learning and formation of young people
Required Reading
- “Being With” website and excerpts from Samuel Wells, Being With, Book 1 – The Core Course: Exploring Life and Faith Together
- Excerpts from Sophia Cavalletti, The Religious Potential of the Child: Experiencing Scripture and Liturgy with Young Children:
- Preface, “The Religious Potential of the Church,” by Mark Searle
- Foreword, “An American Experience of the Catechesis,” by Rebekah Rojcewicz
- Introduction by Sophia Cavalletti
- Jo Whitehead, “Towards a Practical Theology of Whole-Person Learning: Enriching Youth Ministry Formation through Pneumatological Perspectives”
Further Reading
Week 11 Recording