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 Serendipitous Thoughts by Sugar Bear

“The Words I Didn't Know Until I Missed Them”

When I was a boy growing up around Cincinnati's West End, I had a friend named Raymond.
Raymond went to St. Joseph Catholic School nearby. I was growing up Baptist.

Every once in a while Raymond would talk about something called a catechism.
Catechism?

Sugar Bear didn't know what that boy was talking about.
It sounded like a foreign language.

We had Sunday school, Bible stories, preaching, prayer, singing, and enough church mothers to keep a young boy pointed toward Jesus or at least pointed toward behaving himself.
But catechism?
That was Raymond's world.

Funny how God plants little seeds.
Years later my Christian journey brought me into the Lutheran tradition, and there was that word again.

Catechism.

This time it was Martin Luther's Small Catechism:

the Ten Commandments, Apostles' Creed, Lord's Prayer, Baptism, Confession, and Lord's Supper.
And Luther kept asking one simple question:

“What does this mean?”
Something that once sounded foreign slowly became part of the roots of my faith.

Now life has brought Sugar Bear another surprise.

I attend a contemporary-style Lutheran church. I appreciate much of what it is trying to do. The music is contemporary. We may begin with announcements. A short video sometimes introduces the sermon.
But I also notice what I don't hear as often.

The Creed.
The Lord's Prayer.
Communion every Sunday.
The old hymns.

And occasionally this old Sugar Bear finds himself wondering:

Where's the Catechism?
Then comes the mirror.
Maybe I didn't appreciate those old words enough when I heard them every Sunday.

Sometimes you don't realize how deeply something has formed you until you stop hearing it.
And maybe the real question isn't whether a church has an organ or a praise band.
Maybe the question is:
What is forming us?
Are we learning what Christians believe?
Are we learning how Jesus taught us to pray?

Do Baptism, forgiveness, grace, and the Lord's Supper shape who we are?

Are we becoming more deeply rooted in Christ?

Paul encouraged Christians to remain “rooted and built up in him” (Colossians 2:7).

That is what I want.
Contemporary worship can remind me that the Gospel still speaks today.
The old Catechism reminds me that Christianity didn't begin today.
Sugar Bear needs both.

Raymond introduced me to a word I didn't understand.
Decades later, I find myself grateful for the question underneath it:

“What does this mean?”
Maybe every generation of Christians needs to keep asking that.
Because styles will change.
Music will change.
Churches will change.

But before we cut down an old tree, we ought to understand what those roots have been feeding. 

God bless you and this ministry! 

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