I’ve loved the classroom for as long as I can remember. According to family legend, early in my grade school days I gathered several plastic dinosaur models, a box filled with dirt and a few small rocks from our yard. To my mother’s horror, I added several leaves plucked from the new rhododendron plants in our flower beds. I put them all together and then announced that I was prepared to give a lecture on dinosaurs. Somehow or other, the box made it to school and this third grader found himself in front of the sixth-grade class giving my “lecture,” and that’s the word I used for it. Not exactly the boy Jesus in the Temple, but perhaps a little academic proto-nerd walking where Jesus walked.

My paleontology phase passed—more or less–but love for the classroom didn’t. By the time I finished seminary, I had been in the classroom for most of the previous two decades, most of my life to that point. I missed the classroom terribly and the feeling didn’t subside, and soon I set about seeking a way to return to it. No one was particularly surprised when I found my way back to graduate school several years later and then eventually onto the faculty at Perkins School of Theology. I like to think that I did reasonably good work for the several congregations that I served between seminary and landing at Perkins, but even then many of the folks in those churches loved me enough to point me toward academia and the classroom. As a liturgical scholar and director of the weekday chapel life at Perkins, I’ve lived as an academic presbyter, and I’ve loved that work.

Besides the fact that I’ve spent a considerable amount of my academic career reflecting on baptismal praxis, what does this have to do with the catechumenate? Much in every way. As a presbyter for the church, and a bibliophile to boot, much of my discipleship has been expressed in the classroom and in leadership roles within the local church. I have a hunch that many of us who advocate for a focused and sustained catechumenal practice share key aspects of my profile. It doesn’t surprise me, therefore, that much of our catechumenal formation is conducted in the classroom, via a series of lectures on the Christian faith, perhaps something like an adult confirmation/new members class on steroids. That’s where our imagination tends to take us, to the classroom. But is that sufficient? Does it reflect an ancient-modern catechumenal vision at its best? In response, let me offer another family story:

Our oldest son is a bright, well-read, and articulate man who sometimes amazes me with his breadth of knowledge. In that sense, I like to think that the proverbial apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree. Nevertheless, he didn’t go to college. His path to adult vocation emerged after he saw a televised advertisement for a local long haul truck driving school and said, “I’ve always wanted to do that.” Shortly thereafter, he had begun class. Less than a month after that he announced that the classroom and practice lot aspects of the course had been completed. A bit confused, I thought, “Is that all?” I was thinking, however, like a university professor, but one doesn’t learn to drive a truck in a classroom.

Following the classroom phase, he came under the supervision of a trainer, an experienced driver with whom he soon departed on a several months’ sojourn around the country. The trainer had a checklist of skills that our son needed to master before he was permitted to drive on his own. There was verbal instruction along the way, but the goal of the process was learning to drive that massive and complicated piece of machinery and to do so safely. Stop and ponder for a moment. As a fellow occupant of busy highways, perhaps you’ll join me in giving thanks that the initial formation for truck drivers involves more than merely lectures on the topic. Further, take time to notice the drivers who join you on the roads, and remember to pray for them.

In my thinking, the work of that trainer is to safe and responsible truck driving as the catechumenal sponsor is to the baptismal candidate. I see parallels to much that we might learn, whether it be playing an instrument, learning a language, or hitting a curve ball. We are formed by practice. In similar fashion, I know that my lectures on the history and theology of baptism are vitally important, and I love giving them, but they are often sealed (as it were) when I take the students into the chapel, and we stand around the font pouring water in silence. Then, each in turn we “baptize” our life-sized CPR doll. More than a few pastoral vocations have solidified in those moments around the font.

How might our catechumenal processes better reflect these insights, moving beyond the classroom to mentoring baptismal candidates in the ways of resisting evil, doing justice, and living as people who rely on the grace of God?