New City Catechism

What New City Catechism is

New City Catechism is a 52-question catechism — a structured set of questions and answers covering the Christian faith — written for modern readers and delivered through a free app, a free website, a free print edition, and a free year-long curriculum for churches and families. It is modeled on the classical Reformation catechisms (Heidelberg, Westminster Shorter, and the Geneva Catechism of Calvin) but condensed and rewritten in contemporary English.

It is published by The Gospel Coalition and Crossway, and was developed at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City under Tim Keller and Sam Shammas. The 52 questions are organized into three parts — God, creation, and fall (questions 1-20), Christ, redemption, and grace (questions 21-35), and the Spirit, the kingdom, and the means of grace (questions 36-52) — which is the same three-part shape Heidelberg uses, just compressed.

Why so many pastors and parents prefer New City Catechism

The single biggest practical difference between New City Catechism and the older Reformation catechisms is finishability. Heidelberg has 129 questions arranged over 52 Lord’s Days. Westminster Shorter has 107. New City has 52 — exactly one per week for one year — and that single design decision changes how families and small groups actually use it. A catechism you finish builds a different kind of memory than a catechism you start.

The second difference is the dual-track answer. Every question has a short answer (one or two sentences, child-memorable) and a longer adult answer that fills in the same ground with more substance. Parents and kids land on the same words; adults get the deeper paragraph. Classical catechisms do not do this. In practice it means one family can use one resource without splitting into a kids version and an adults version, which is the rock most family catechism plans break on.

52 weekly Q&A: the one-year, one-question-per-week structure

The catechism is built around a calendar — 52 questions for 52 weeks, three parts of roughly equal length, with each week’s question carrying scripture, commentary, prayer, and an audio reading. The app surfaces the current week by default, but you can jump to any question, replay older weeks, and revisit Christ Connection material at any time. The whole thing fits into a school year almost exactly, which is why so many churches schedule it from September to August.

This sounds like a small thing. In practice it is transformative. Most adults who try to learn a catechism quit not because the content is hard but because the schedule collapses. Fifty-two questions at one per week is a pace a normal person can sustain alongside a job and kids and a Sunday morning routine. It is the model that respects your time. Heidelberg and Westminster reward the person who has already built a daily theology habit; New City Catechism is designed to help build that habit in the first place.

Child + adult dual-track answers: the same question, two depths

Every question in New City Catechism has two answers — a short answer (typically one or two sentences) that a child can memorize, and a longer answer that expands the same idea with more scriptural framing and theological vocabulary. The app lets you toggle between the two with a single tap. Question 1 is the cleanest example: short answer ends with “that I am not my own but belong, body and soul, both in life and death, to God and to my Savior Jesus Christ.” The adult expansion takes the same sentence and grounds it in fuller language. Parents and children can sit at the same table and recite the same words.

For families this is the feature that does the actual work. A six-year-old and a forty-year-old can engage the same question on the same week without either of them being talked down to or talked over. For church curricula it means the kids class, the youth track, and the adult small group are all on Question 14 together, with material pitched at each age. Classical catechisms simply do not offer this, which is why most family-discipleship plans built on Heidelberg eventually fork into a kids edition and an adults edition. New City Catechism collapses that fork.

Free curriculum for churches and families: the part most people miss

Beyond the app and the print edition, New City Catechism publishes a complete free curriculum for churches and families — a leader guide, presentation slides, a family devotional rhythm, kids lesson plans, and supplementary discussion material covering all 52 weeks. It is built so a small-group leader can pick it up on a Tuesday night and teach a real lesson on Wednesday without a seminary degree or a curriculum budget. The Gospel Coalition hosts the assets; nothing is paywalled.

For pastors and ministry leaders this is the quietly important piece. Free curricula at this depth are rare — most year-long teaching plans cost real money per seat, and the ones that do not cost money tend to look it. New City Catechism’s church curriculum is designed and edited at the same level as the app itself. A church that wants to introduce catechesis without standing up a custom program now has a turnkey way to do it, and the same material their kids are learning on Sunday is the material their parents have on their phones during the week.

Pricing

Where New City Catechism falls behind

Only 52 questions. This is the design and also the limit — Heidelberg covers ground on the sacraments, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments at a level of detail New City Catechism simply cannot match in its compressed format. Readers who want full coverage of those areas will eventually graduate to a longer catechism, and the New City team is upfront that this is a feature.

No deep tradition-switching. The framing throughout is broadly Reformed-evangelical. Readers from Lutheran, Anglican, Catholic, Orthodox, or Latter-day Saint traditions will recognize many of the questions and many of the answers, but the surrounding commentary, the choice of contributors, and the way certain doctrines are framed all sit within a Reformed posture. That is not a flaw; it is the resource being honest about what it is. But it does mean it will not function as a one-stop catechism for every tradition.

Thin progress tracking. The app gets you through 52 weeks cleanly but does not have the sophisticated streak, history, and cross-device sync layer of a dedicated habit-style devotional app. If you are coming from YouVersion or Hallow you will notice the gap immediately.

Audio and video are good but not flagship. The video commentaries are short, helpful, and well-shot, but the production layer is a step below a fully dedicated audio-devotional app. For most readers this does not matter — the catechism is the product, not the audio — but if audio-first is your primary mode of engagement, you will probably listen and then go elsewhere for the rest of your week.

New City Catechism vs. Heidelberg Catechism vs. Westminster Shorter Catechism

Different strengths. Heidelberg Catechism (129 questions, 1563) is warmer and more pastoral than most catechisms — its first question (“What is your only comfort in life and in death?”) is the question New City Catechism borrows almost verbatim for its own Question 1. Westminster Shorter (107 questions, 1647) is tighter, more legal in cadence, and built to support the Westminster Confession; it is the catechism Presbyterian churches in the English-speaking world have taught for nearly four centuries. New City Catechism is shorter than either and uses contemporary English throughout.

In practice the choice depends on what you are trying to do. For a family or a church trying to introduce catechesis for the first time, New City Catechism is the easiest on-ramp — it finishes in a year and the dual-track answers are designed for mixed-age use. For a Reformed congregation that wants a confessional document woven into long-term church life, Heidelberg or Westminster carry historical weight and doctrinal depth New City Catechism does not try to match. They are sturdier; New City Catechism is more approachable.

A surprisingly common pattern is to use New City Catechism as a one-year on-ramp, then move into Heidelberg or Westminster the following year for a second pass at greater depth. New City Catechism’s authors openly recommend this. The three catechisms are not competitors so much as a sequence — and you can get all three for free in well-built apps, which makes the whole conversation a different one than it was a generation ago.

Alternatives to New City Catechism