Dr. Peter Hsu spent the summer in and around the Perrysburg area working as an instructional designer with Altius Education, Inc., and, with his wife Ada, visiting relatives in Canada. During that time, they visited Stonebridge Church regularly and we were able to spend some time with them. The Hsu’s have served as missionaries and church planters in the large city of Chengdu in mainland China for the past six to eight years. During our conversations, I discovered that the main tool they use for evangelism, discipleship and leadership training is none other than the Westminster Shorter Catechism. I recently asked Peter to describe in detail how they use the “WSC” in their church. Below is his reply. He has granted permission to use his comments.

 In response to your question about using the Shorter Catechism in evangelism and Christian education, I’ll just jot down some random thoughts as they come to mind; wish I can organize them better:

1.       In GanEnTang (GET or Thanksgiving Church), we use the catechism at 3 levels i.e. Seekers, Adult Sunday School, and Leadership Training.

2.       Because in Chengdu we always get a number of visitors (seekers) each Sunday, we have a special class after morning worship just for them. Basically, we let these seekers ask questions of faith and refer to the shorter catechism for answers. For example, if they ask “what is the difference between the Chinese gods and the Western god?” We would start with conversing around Question 5 of the Shorter Catechism; otherwise, we would always start from Question 1 “Why are we here?”

3.       The first course in our Adult Sunday School is “The Apostles’ Creed” class. This generally covers Q1-Q38 at a more basic level. Believers and seekers can join this class. Many ask for baptism before the 15 week class is over because the Gospel becomes clearer to them over the course of the 15 weeks. We don’t really know when the Spirit does the work of conversion but Sunday School seems to be the place where many came to Christ. Because we confess the Apostles Creed every Sunday, it also reinforces the Gospel learn in Sunday School.

4.       Another first course in our SS is the Life of Christ (Mark/John Gospel). Seekers who are more relational type may choose to go into this class first to encounter the person of Jesus Christ in the flesh. The more rational type may choose to go to the Apostles Creed class first.

5.       From the above two classes, many seekers will go to the Baptismal Class (5-week) with a focus on repentance and faith in Christ as well as church membership. We baptizes in Easter, August, Christmas.

6.       After baptism, the first course is “Christian Living” which covers Q39-84 mainly on the Ten Commandments. We always look at the Commandments as covenant love, a bride’s response to a loving husband, Jesus Christ. So every class we begin by talking about some aspect of this covenant relationship.

7.       The last core course is “Living in the Grace of God” which covers Q85-107. The emphasis is on the using God’s means of grace to strengthen faith, and it is faith that pleases God. Here we dispel any notion of easy believism and exhort believers to “labor to enter the rest”.

8.       At the Leadership Training Level, we go through the entire 107 questions of the Shorter Catechism over an 18-month period with SS teachers, small group leaders, Bible Study leaders, ushers, greeters, etc. at a more theological level. For example, when we deal with Q5, we also discuss concepts like atheism, polytheism, monotheism, etc. When we deal with Baptism, we also address denominational differences.

9.       Assessment is very important because you do not really know whether a person grasp the truth unless s/he can apply it to situations in real life. For our leaders we conduct periodical tests where it is not a test of memory, but of discernment and application. We have a test bank of multiple choice questions and a bank of case studies. I’ll ask Ada to translate some of them for you so you see how assessment is carried out. In the future, maybe you can contribute questions we can use as well. Today, in China, there are very powerful cults that prey after ignorant Christians, so teaching of a sound and robust theology is the best protection we can give to our people.

Dr Peter Hsu

Instructional Designer Altius Education, Inc.