Chris Halverson

Christopher's Contemporary Catechism Chris Halverson

Why a Contemporary Catechism? Even if you never had to memorize Luther's Small Catechism, you probably remember one of the most common phrases found inside, "What does this mean?" One of the apocryphal stories about this question is that Luther's son, Hans, constantly asked this question of Luther every time he theologized too far into the clouds. The Lutheran faith became grounded in answering this boy's questions. In a similar vein, I started up a summer sermon series-20 Questions in 10 weeks. It seemed to me that one of the dangers of preaching every week from the lectionary was that my theology could miss the mark, not because it was wrong, but because it could get too far into the clouds. And so, the members of St. Stephen humored me the spring before I started this series, by filling our question box with question. In doing this they helped plant my preaching on firm ground. The first year was so well received I did it a second and third year, ending up with 19 sermons total. 19 sermons applying Lutheran Theology and my own pastoral sensibility to 25 questions from my congregation. I hope and pray our wrestling with these questions may be helpful for you, dear reader.