Ep. 301: Why You Need Catechism

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the indoubt podcast where we explore the challenging topics that young adults often face. Each week we talk with guests who help answer questions of faith, life, and culture, connecting them to our daily experiences and God’s word. For more info on indoubt, visit indoubt.ca or indoubt.com.

Daniel Markin:

Hey, welcome to indoubt, this is Daniel Markin. On today’s program, I’m joined by a good friend of mine. His name is Matt Crocker. No, he is not the singer from Hillsong, but Matt is a good buddy of mine. We’ve kind of grown up doing ministry together. And today we’re talking through his first book that he has written, which is called Foundations: A Hundred Days Of Devotions Through Catechism. And what is catechism? Well, we will answer that question for you. And as you listen, too, make sure to check out his book. You can get it on Amazon. Right now on Kindle, you can get it for four bucks. But if you go to wipfandstock.com, W I P F and Stock.com, you can actually order the book through there. Use their promo code, 100DAYS, and you’ll get it at a discount. So that’s for the hard copy of the book. I hope you enjoy this interview with Matt and I.

Hey, Welcome to indoubt. This is Daniel Markin. And today I’m joined by Matt Crocker, my friend, friend in ministry, lifelong friend, Matt Crocker, who is the author of a book called Foundations, which we’re going to talk about a little bit today. But Matt, why don’t you quickly introduce yourself to our listeners?

Matt Crocker:

Yeah. Hey, my name’s Matt. Like Daniel said, we’ve been lifelong friends. I live and work in Vancouver, BC at a local church called Christ City, doing youth ministry. And wrote a book called Foundations, which is what we’re going to be talking about. That’s probably about it. I don’t know what else you want to know.

Daniel Markin:

Are you a family man, Matt?

Matt Crocker:

I’m a family man. Two kids. One son, his name’s Hudson, and then one daughter named Zoe. She’s great. Hudson’s great too.

Daniel Markin:

They’re both great.

Matt Crocker:

They’re both great. And my wife is named Jody. She also is working and living in Vancouver with me.

Daniel Markin:

Amazing. Well, Matt, we’re going to talk a little bit about Foundations today, which is this book that you’ve written, but you’ve also been serving, and maybe some of the context of this book, is you’re serving at Christ City in Vancouver doing some youth ministry. And so with that, that has kind of actually brought in some of the reason why you wrote this book is your work with youth.

But I wanted to just take a little fun note here and ask you this question, Matt. We have a long history together. We went to high school together.

Matt Crocker:

We did.

Daniel Markin:

And in high school we played kickball, dodgeball against each other. You were on a dodgeball team. What was the team called?

Matt Crocker:

So when I came on this podcast, I was wondering how long it would take before Daniel brought this up. We were on an intramural dodgeball team called Meat Fest ’98.

Daniel Markin:

Good year.

Matt Crocker:

Meat Fest ’98. Great year. It was awesome. It was a lot of fun. Daniel, you too were on a team.

Daniel Markin:

I was on an intermural team called the Mullet mullets.

Matt Crocker:

A lesser quality team.

Daniel Markin:

Well, I wouldn’t say lesser quality. I’d say we were younger. We were year behind you in high school.

Matt Crocker:

Yeah, a year behind.

Daniel Markin:

And part of the story is we’ve met each other in the kickball finals at the Mullet intramurals, and the Mullet mullets defeated Meat Fest ’98 in a massive upset.

Matt Crocker:

That day.

Daniel Markin:

I mean, especially for a grade 12 team to lose to a grade 11 team. Huge. And I just wanted to ask, how did that experience influence your writing of Foundation? I’m just teasing.

Matt Crocker:

It was such a sad day, Daniel. I don’t even remember it.

Daniel Markin:

Amazing. Well, to get into this then. So you’ve written this book. This is your first book you’ve written.

Matt Crocker:

It is, yeah.

Daniel Markin:

And what’s fun about this book is you’re telling me about it. We were walking around downtown, I think getting a coffee at one point.

Matt Crocker:

Yeah. Yeah.

Daniel Markin:

Because at the time you were doing ministry of Vancouver, I was doing ministry of Vancouver and you were telling me, “I’m writing this book,” and you told me the idea of it. I’m like, “This is amazing. Can you send me a copy?” And one thing led to another. You end up sending me a copy. And I used this book and which is why I really recommend it to our listeners, but I used this book to teach through it. So that’s just a little hint, but what is this Foundation’s book?

Matt Crocker:

Yeah, I mean, let me give you a little bit of the context for it too. So here at Christ City, we were doing what you might call a catechism class with our youth.

Daniel Markin:

What is catechism?

Matt Crocker:

Catechism is basically just a method of teaching where you go through questions and answers. There’s a bunch of different historic catechisms that have been written. Martin Luther wrote one. There’s the Heidelberg catechism. And the one that we chose to use is called the Westminster Shorter Catechism, which came out of puritanism. It’s one of the foundational catechisms for Presbyterianism. It’s great. It’s been used not just by those denominations, but by a wide breadth of people. The Westminster Shorter in particular is super, super popular.

So we were doing this thing where I was using that and updating the language to be a bit more modern, a bit more youth friendly you could say. Not in a like, oh, I’m adding cool youth culture words, but just updating the English youth slang, updating the English from thee’s and thou’s to a bit more modern parlance.

And then we would teach it to our youth. And it was going great. It was awesome. It was a lot of fun. Writing lessons and stuff on that was amazing. But then COVID hit and when COVID hit, everyone went into lockdown and suddenly I couldn’t teach this class anymore. I was like, “Okay, well how do I reach the youth and maintain some sort of daily discipleship with them in some way?”

And what I decided to do is I created Instagram posts using the catechism sort of question and answers. So every day I’d post. I’ll just flip open to a random page. I’d post a question on Instagram, on a picture and be like, “Did all people fall when Adam Eve sinned?” And then they’d scroll and it’d say “Yes, when Adam and Eve sinned the punishment extended to everyone.” Something like that. And then underneath in the sort of caption area, I wrote a little sort of short devotional piece. And as I was doing this and I was doing it daily, so we were going through each question and answer of the catechism. There’s a hundred of them.

People started to say, “Oh, that’s a good idea. You should maybe consider extending it and writing more.” So I just kept extending it and extending it and extending it and adding to it and adding to it and adding to it until it became this sort of full book-length, devotional work, where there’s a hundred days of catechism question and answers, including a devotional piece and a prayer and questions for reflection.

And so really it’s now a devotional tool, but also a tool hopefully that people can use to shape and maybe build their own programs for youth. Or it would be a great thing to walk through with new Christians even, because it’s designed to introduce people to the basic doctrines and basic ideas of the Christian faith in a really non-high brow way. It’s not a large theological treatise. It’s a small devotional work written for lay people. It would be an excellent sort of introduction to newer Christians, that sort of thing. So that’s kind of the genesis of the book.

Daniel Markin:

It’s a bite-sized form, which I really appreciate because when you hear catechism, I think the Westminster catechism, maybe people have Googled it before you start, “Man, it’s wordy.” And you’re kind of like, “What is going on here?” And I agree it can be a little bit off-putting or just overwhelming to a new believer. And so one of the things I really appreciated is you’re giving people really high level theology. And maybe just even because it’s a devotional, it’s just a taste of it, but you summarize kind of that point. But passively, as people read through these things, they’re actually gaining a depth and knowledge and building a theological foundation that I think is really important. Because my understanding and correct me if I’m wrong, but before there were Sunday schools, you would do catechism with kids. They would have a catechism class. They go to a room and they’re kind of memorizing the questions and answers.

So it’s the sort of thing where I say, “four times four,” you say, “Oh, 16.” You just know it off the tip of your tongue. My understanding is catechism was that. You would ask, “What is the chief end of man?” The kid would be like, “Oh, to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” The answer just flips off the top of their mind. And this is even the same reason why we talk about creeds. We have historical creeds. We sing songs because things come to memory. We recite communion, that passage over and over again because oh, boom. It’s just right to the top of your mind.

Matt Crocker:

Yeah. The idea is formation. The idea with catechism is I think even when I run classes, because you still do classes now through the catechism. And yeah, the thing I like to tell the youth that are involved in it, the book is written probably for an older youth and or a young adult kind of age range, newer Christian kind of thing. And then I distill that down again in our catechism classes on a Sunday morning.

And one of the things I’m constantly telling the kids in our classes is basically saying, “Look, guys, I want you to memorize the question and answers.” But even if you can’t memorize it word for word, if we say it out loud, more together in the class, if we’re writing it down on our note sheets, if we’re doing all these things, then the ideas from this catechism, they’re kind of getting lodged in our brains and they’re forming and shaping our understanding of the Christian worldview and then developing our theological ability.

And I think that’s so important. That’s I would say it’s really a worldview sort of formation type thing, is what catechism is of designed to be. It’s presenting you with all the sort of questions that may be asked about Christianity in a very systematic way so that people come out of it with a fully shaped worldview of what Christianity is.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. There’s something to be said about worldview building. And I think that’s a big piece of teaching the next generation, because we’re trying to construct a Christian worldview comparing that to a TikTok worldview. The thing that we had talked about is, and the reason I was teaching through it, is the main mode of catechism for kids these days is their phone. They’re being catechized by what they see on TikTok, what they see on Instagram, Facebook. That’s what influences them. That’s what’s teaching them.

And so it’s interesting that this is almost like a reverse catechism. You’re trying to return back to that and build that foundation and that worldview. And maybe this is a question for you. There’s always youth, and the tough thing about youth ministry is you disciple these high school kids for years and years and years, and they walk away from the faith. The question is always, they get to college and someone comes along, like a professor, a biology professor and says like, “Hey, all this stuff that you believe in the Bible’s wrong. It’s all about science evolution.”

Or you can go to the philosophy professor. Dah, dah, dah. And they just rip on Christianity. It’s been my experience, and it’s my opinion that I think the reason so many of youth and young adults walk away from the faith in the early years of college is because their worldview was just so underbuilt. That world of the philosophical implications, sociological implications of the Christian faith was so underdeveloped that they come along to someone else who actually has a worldview, although it we’d say it would be wrong. It’s an incorrect pagan worldview built on anti-Christian values. That worldview actually, it seems so much stronger. And so by plausibility, they just, well, I guess I’m going to fall into this one and they fall away from their faith.

Would you agree with that sentiment about worldview being an important piece of developing children and students? Or do you disagree that there’s other reasons why students might fall away from the faith? Because this tool ultimately in using it for high school students, young adults, is to help people stay in the faith and grow in their faith. What do you think is the chief reason these days why students are walking away from the faith?

Matt Crocker:

Yeah. I mean, you already mentioned one. It is just like the culture, the pressure in the culture is so strong. Like social media apps, TikTok and Instagram. Those sorts of things have such a huge impact on young people today. On all of us. I was born ’93. Is that a millennial. I’m one of those?

Daniel Markin:

Yeah, you’re a millennial.

Matt Crocker:

And I use all those things and they definitely are prevalent part of my life. And so if that’s true for me, then it’s even more true for people who are of a younger generation. They’ve never had a world without it. They’re always going to be taking part in those things. So those things shape them and form them in ways maybe that we take for granted. We don’t really realize that the stuff they’re seeing, the music they’re listening to, those things people are sharing on their Instagram are actually having a significant impact on how they think of the world.

That’s definitely one part in terms of that worldview of formation of young people that I think does in maybe them walking away from their faith at some point in their life. The other thing I’d say, I’m a fairly strong reformed guy. And so on one level, I want to say, “Okay, well people who walk away from their faith, they’re walking away from their faith not because there’s been a failure to learn scripture. It’s more because the spirit hasn’t been at work in their hearts.”

But then on the other hand I want to uphold human responsibility and the church’s responsibility to teach people. And so I think my perspective is one of, I don’t know. I might have a kid in my youth group who’s an all-star. They appear to love the Lord. They seem like they’re great. And they go through university and they fall away from their faith. And you go, “What happened?” They were involved in everything. We did all we could. They served. They read their Bible. They did this, and they still fall away. And that’s surprising to us sometimes.

And then you might have kids in your youth group who they’re involved in everything, and they’re just not listening to any of it, and you have no idea. And so I don’t really know the exact reasons why young people fall away besides the data we have, which suggests that it’s happening. That social media and other things like that play a role. But we should, I think, be trying our hardest to disciple young people as much as we possibly can with deep theology and not this sort of wide breadth of just a smattering of topics that doesn’t really cover the things that they’ll be facing in the real world.

I think that’s where a lot of the attractional model of youth ministry fails, is because you’re trying to basically get these kids in the door with fun and games.

Daniel Markin:

Slurpees, monster trucks.

Matt Crocker:

Actually though it’s the same in young adult ministries too. It’s the same in just regular church ministries. We’re all tempted towards that, where we sort of place this idea of getting people involved is more important than that depth of knowledge. But it doesn’t work. It doesn’t have lasting impact, I don’t think, because you’re not forming robust worldviews that can actually compete with the worldviews that they’re going to be inundated with in the culture around them. And if you don’t have an understanding, a fully orbed understanding of what the Christian worldview is and how the gospel of Jesus Christ reconciles us to God the Father.

And now that we’re reconciled to God the Father who is Lord over all things, we can take our whole lives and live it in service to God who’s created the world as something good that we can be in our jobs, glorifying God. We can be in our homes glorifying God with our families. We can be acting as politicians and glorifying God as we do that. We can glorify God in all areas of our life because we’ve been reconciled to him and are indwelt by his spirit.

If you don’t have that understanding, then you’re going to sort of compartmentalize your faith, which is this juvenile understanding of what faith is, and the rest of your life. And the rest of your life is going to look more attractive because it’s about the fun and the games and making money and whatever it is, the pursuit of pleasure. So I think the whole idea of catechizing people, the idea of the devotional book and everything like that, it is to help people form a worldview, a Christian worldview, that can hold up to the competition.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. Hard work now that will pay off when the hard times come later.

Matt Crocker:

Totally, totally.

Daniel Markin:

I remember we in high school, remember there was track and field and speed agility stuff that the football guys would do.

Matt Crocker:

Yeah, yeah.

Daniel Markin:

Well, we would do these trainings where we were literally running up hills. We were running up hills 15, 16 times. And your legs would get so tired, you’re actually instructed to walk down the hill backwards, because it was better for your knees because your knees could buckle because you’ve been training so hard. And I remember it clicked for me then because I was like, “You know, I could actually make it easier myself by not trying as hard right now, and just kind of glide up the hills, not really push myself up these hills, because it’d be easier.” But I also knew from experience that as the summer goes on, as the training intensifies, we’re not running up 16 hills anymore. It’s 36 hills. It’s like by working harder now it would actually be easier later on rather than just getting crushed later on and wanting to quit.

And so there’s an element of, “Man catechism is not necessarily fun.” A lot of stuff in church discipleship isn’t necessarily fun. There’s a lot of things that we do that aren’t necessarily fun. And why is it? It just seems that a lot of the things that are really important in life take work. It’s hard work. And yet those are the most rewarding things. Those are the things that pay off the most. You work hard at your job, you get paid. Hard work is important and you see the fruit of that.

But just circling back to what you’re saying, there’s nothing necessarily inherently wrong with Slurpees, monster trucks. But there’s an element of what you win people with is what you win them to.

Matt Crocker:

Totally.

Daniel Markin:

And so what I really appreciate about you and your ministry is you want to win people to a deep faith, a deep gospel that through hard times and storms will become the foundation on which they can actually stand. Rather than like, “Oh, I’m going through the hardest thing in my life and all my church offers me is Slurpees, monster trucks and a fun sort of sermon.” We’re trying to disciple people in the good times and the bad times.

Matt Crocker:

Yeah. I think even too one of the things that maybe I think sometimes people misunderstand about worldviews and worldview formation and the part that catechism plays in that, is that if you have a robust worldview that gives you reasons for some of those big questions you have: Who am I? What is the ultimate reality in the universe? Why is there evil and suffering? You have something that provides answers to those questions in a coherent and comprehensive way, then when you are faced with other competing worldview systems, whether it’s on your TikTok, or whether it’s on your Instagram, or whether it’s in your university classrooms, or in your high schools, you have already formed your own worldview and you already have answers to maybe those pushbacks that a competing worldview system may place against Christianity, against those worldview assumptions.

And people tend to, once you’ve got those answers, once you have understanding of this is what I believe the world to be like, this is the sort of understanding I have of it, it’s, I think, pretty rare for people to actually do a full 180 turn and switch around. You know what I mean? It seems to be the case that a lack of knowledge and an inability to answer questions and an inability to reconcile maybe the world view claims of the secular world with the world view claims of Christianity that leads to the conflict.

But if you have the world view claims of Christianity solidified, then that conflict is just avoided because you go like, “Oh, that’s not what I think. And I have good reasons for not thinking that.” And I think that’s where I’m trying to lead people to through this sort of devotional format, is answering some of those questions. And that’s why catechism is so awesome, because catechism was designed specifically for that purpose, to give you answers and clarity on all of these different questions you might have. So it’s got an apologetic angle. It’s got a theological angle. And I think that’s why it’s so, so valuable.

Daniel Markin:

And when those philosophical or theological objections come with a Christian worldview, you’ll be like, “Well, no, they don’t compute.” People still will fall away. And I would say it’s not because of the secular philosophy, but because of the attraction of the secular lifestyle. The number one reason why so many Christians fall away is they just want to have sex with who they want to have sex with. It’s the passion of the flesh. And so they know in their mind, “Well I know what the Bible teaches on this. I’m just not going to care.”

And so we do all we can to catechize, but yet, like you mentioned earlier, it’s a work of the spirit that is the thing that keeps people in the faith. It’s the only thing. The spirit seals believers. And one of the things, too, in our culture right now, I think the church at large needs to just do a better job at providing answers to our young people. Because right now so many, I think, young Christians have a truncated view of what the gospel is. They think it just belongs in church. They’re getting to university and they’re encountering all these different ideas. They’re getting into the world. They’re seeing it online.

They’re seeing all these different philosophies, don’t know necessarily what to make of it. And they’re not going to their pastors. I was talking with someone else about this. They’re going to Jordan Peterson for answers about philosophy and questions about faith, which is really interesting. They’re not going to their pastor, their local church about it. They’re going online to this other person. And I think we need to do a better job as the church to actually provide answers to some of those questions so they’re not having to go outside of the church to find answers to questions that they have.

Matt Crocker:

Yeah, exactly.

Daniel Markin:

Well, Matt, we’re kind of coming in for landing here. We’ve got to end our time. We could keep going. I mean, we could just swap stories on and on and on.

Matt Crocker:

Yeah, we could.

Daniel Markin:

Let’s let our audience know where can they get this book, A Hundred Days Of Devotions Through Catechism? Where do they get this? And I understand there’s a little promo code that you have been offered.

Matt Crocker:

Yeah. So you can find the book on Amazon. Basically anywhere they sell books. It’s on sale right now on Amazon. You can get it on Kindle for $4 I believe, or even under $4. Something like that.

Daniel Markin:

That’s a really good deal.

Matt Crocker:

Steal of a deal, if you have Kindle and you like to use Kindle. And then you can get it half price if you order through Wipf and Stock’s website. That’s the publisher, Wipf and Stock. If you use the promo code 100DAYS, all capital, at the checkout you can get it 50% off there as well. Yeah. That’s where you can find it.

Daniel Markin:

Amazing. Matt, thank you for your time. We’ll have you back on the program again at some point I’m sure.

Matt Crocker:

Yeah, bro. It was good to chat. Talk to you soon.

Speaker 1:

Thanks so much for listening. If you want to hear more, subscribe on iTunes or Spotify or visit us online at indoubt.ca or indoubt.com. We’re also on social media. So make sure to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Daniel Markin:

Indoubt is a ministry that exists to engage young people with biblical truth and provide answers for many of today’s questions of life, faith, and culture. Through audio programs, articles, and blogs, In Doubt reaches out to encourage, strengthen, and disciple young adults. To check out all the resources of indoubt, visit indoubt.ca in Canada, or indoubt.com in the US.

If you’re in a position or share a passion for the ministry of young people, you can support the ongoing mission of engaging a new generation with the truth of the Bible. First, you can pray for this ministry. And second, and if you are able, please consider a financial gift by visiting indoubt.ca in Canada or indoubt.com in the US. Your gift of any amount is such a blessing and an answer to pray. Thanks.