How Deep Do We Run?

Brian McLaren once said, “If you want a feel for the richness of the phrase “Word of God,” ask the Lutherans; it’s a secret that their own tradition seems to know without knowing what it means. (A Generous Orthodoxy, 2006)

I use that quote often in my work. It is both filled with deep respect for the depth of Lutheran teaching and with a sadness that we don’t know or understand our own stuff better than we do. I have looked at other traditions (Presbyterian, Episcopal, etc.) and find the same basic premise. All of us have good stuff to offer and a large number of people who adhere to our tradition don’t know it.

This reality is what called me to write Lutheran Cards: Playing Our Best Hand in the 21^st Century over a decade ago. I’ve updated the title and some of the content due to political realities but the book continues to help people understand the basics pretty well and gets used by pastors and lay leaders alike as a teaching text.

That’s the whole reason I wrote the updated edition of Martin Luther’s Small Catechism – A 21^st Century Edition. It’s being lifted up by people as “long overdue,” “finally something our people understand and want to discuss,” and “the best annotated small catechism edition in a generation.”

I decided to write this because just today I have had two different pastors talk to me on the phone about both of these books and how they have found them life giving for their people. I’m genuinely excited about the reception they have received and the ways people are using them for new members, confirmation, small groups and for council/board books to read and discuss.

I have also been in the process of switching to some new book production and distribution methods. The ability to print and ship books is changing and doing so in ways that make it easier for smaller publishers like Day 8 Strategies to produce materials and get them to you efficiently and quickly.

Here are two links to the books above using my new publishing point. If a copy of either of these or both of these interests you, you can access them here:

For Martin Luther’s Small Catechism: A 21^st Century Edition, click here.

For Lutheran Cards: Playing Our Best hand in the 21^st Century, click here.

Ands if you’d like The Invitational Christian, you can click here.

Thanks – and let me know what you think!

Dave Daubert

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