If you follow our social media channels (Instagram, Facebook, TikTok), you’ll see that we’re starting off a little campaign there that we are calling “Sanctified Summer,” digging into Luther’s Small Catechism one little bite at a time. A lot of Lutherans haven’t looked at their Small Catechisms in a while, at least since they were confirmed. That might be you, and even if you’re the rare person who has looked into the Small Catechism recently, a refresher never hurts.

The Small Catechism was produced by Martin Luther after he visited some churches that had newly defected from Roman Catholicism over to this new Lutheran movement. As Luther visited these churches, he soon realized that the people in these churches had been neglected by priests and the church – they hardly knew anything about God…even some of the priests were in this boat as they had been ineffectively trained!

So Luther set out to write a catechism, he was writing a handbook that covered the basics of the faith. It was meant to be the minimum standard that every Christian should know. It was the catch up course, remedial Christianity for those who didn’t quite get it the first time. So in that way, it was a lot like a kid taking summer school because he or she failed some class in the regular year.

But Luther’s Small Catechism ended up being an invaluable tool. Sometimes it is good to have the basics written down. So as Luther wrote down the basics of the faith like the 10 commandments, the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, Baptism, Confession/Forgiveness, and the Lord’s Supper, he was able to simply express why these things were important and what they basically meant for us. It was a jumping off point to reading Scripture or talking to your neighbor.

This summer, join us in looking a little at Luther’s Small Catechism. You may have a copy without realizing it. If you have a Bible produced by Concordia Publishing House, look in the table of contents or at the back of the book. If you don’t have one in print, then go to catechism.cph.org and you can look at Luther’s work for free.

Dig in with us and have a “sanctified summer” as we look together at the basics of the faith.