Yesterday I wrote this – Rachel Meyer, a missionary serving in Taiwan, will be coming to our Rongo site and assisting the school for two weeks. She presently serves as a missionary teacher, so she will be bringing her skills to Rongo; helping in the classrooms, teaching music, as well as assisting the deaconess in Catechesis Instruction.
Some one asked about catechesis and what that meant. Missions involves planting churches. We believe that Lutheran Missions means planting Lutheran churches. When churches are planted then indigenous churches are formed and eventually become independent and they become partner churches. The LCMS has always been big on education and catechetical instruction and that means preparing folks for the Lords’ Supper. Sometimes partner churches ask fro assistance in training for folks who teach the catechism.
Detlev Schulz in his book Mission From the Cross published by CPH explains the formation of catechesis in a mission context.
“Although the Lord’s Supper is not a “missionary” sacrament as Baptism is, it gives a public testimony to the world that something special is taking place amid the believers. There is an exclusivity experienced with the celebration of the Eucharist that cannot permit all newcomers indiscriminately to the table without ascertaining who they are and from what background they come. For the Eucharist is a sacrament
reserved for those who are baptized and instructed. In this sense, being admitted to the Lord’s Supper is a consequence of proper Christian education (didache) and, as such, an application of Matt. 28:19 that they all may be “taught” in what Christ Himself has taught.”
