Catechumenate

Interested in deepening your relationships, connecting your congregation on a more meaningful basis, or enriching your faith life?

Contact the Oregon Synod Catechumenate Team:

About the Catechumente Committee:
The joint Oregon Synod/Diocese of Oregon Catechumenate Team has been working diligently over the past few years to get out the word about a flexible "ancient-postmodern" process for making disciples called the Catechumenate. Derived from the same root as catechism, the Catechumenate is a richly rewarding process that involves listening, stories, reflection and practice in Bible reading, prayer, worship and ministry in daily life. For either those new to the Christian faith or those coming back after an absence, the process connects congregation members with new folks in a deeply satisfying way.

The past three years we have held an annual Catechumenate Training Event to introduce the process as well as give opportunities for continuing learning and sharing for those already using the process.

In 2005-06 the team is focusing on "coaching" congregations who want help in either getting started or continuing to develop a catechumenal process in their congregation. Email or call one of the Team if you're interested in knowing more or would like some coaching.

Events

July 19 to 22, 2007
2007 annual gathering of the
North American Association for the Catechumenate
Mount Carmel
Spirituality Centre
Niagara Falls, Canada

Connecting Worship, Experience, and Sacrament
Churches need a way to expand the range of meanings that people bring to the sacraments. Currently, we have a narrow range of explanations for sacraments which robs them of their central and rich place in living the Christian life. If all we have is just one or two ways of thinking about Baptism or the Lord’s Supper, it is easy to soon grow tired of the sacraments. Even though none of these meanings are wrong, the narrowness is incomplete and thus unable to bear the weight of having the sacraments at the center of the church’s spirituality. The presenter, the Rev. Dr. Craig A. Satterlee, will demonstrate – from the vantage point of preaching – how to move the sacraments to the center of spirituality by making the Bible, personal experience, and worship intersect in such a way that a wealth of meanings surface. Rather than traditional lectures, Dr. Satterlee will ground his presentation in participants’ experience and reflection, and in small groups participants will consider implications of Dr. Satterlee’s work for catechesis and spiritual formation.

Dr. Satterlee will explore this theme at the 2007 annual gathering of the North American Association for the Catechumenate July 19 through July 22 at the Mount Carmel Spiritual Centre in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. Dr. Satterlee, an associate professor of homiletics at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, is the author of Ambrose of Milan's Method of Mystagogical Preaching and coauthor of Creative Preaching on the Sacraments. The liturgist will be the Rev. Dr. Clay Morris, who serves the Episcopal Church (USA) as Liturgical Officer in Office for Liturgy and Music. For full details, including the ten workshops being offered, visit www.catechumnate.org.

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