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The season of Advent begins four Sundays before Christmas. It is a time in which we are invited to live into the anticipation and preparation for the coming of the One who turns our world upside down, who offers us a new perspective on life, a new way of being. Traditionally it was a deeply spiritual time in which the soul longed and waited for God’s coming into the world. Often for us, in our 21st century world, it is a time of frenzy, hurry, and unrealistic expectation of others and ourselves.

Dear Old South Church:

In his book, Learning to Dream Again: Rediscovering the Heart of God, Samuel Wells (no relation!) has a chapter in which he deals with two very important questions. He raises these questions in the broad context of the Book of Genesis and some of the relationships that are presented in those mythic accounts. In fact, it is not he who raises them; the texts themselves raise them.

Our Pilgrim forebears began the American tradition of Thanksgiving just as wind-swept leaves fell relentlessly all around them, the frigid morning air demanded a fire in the hearth and a woolen outer garment, and the encroaching shadows asked candles be lit to push back the late afternoon darkness. Yet in this seemingly harsh new world, they offered the “first fruits” of their little harvest to God with gratitude and hospitality.

Doing a Hard Thing at a Critical Time

No organization—and no church—will survive over the long term if it fails to make adjustments at critical junctures. The average life-span of a church in the US is 75 years. You beat those odds by being smart and strategic, by focusing like a laser on your mission, anticipating problems, making tactical adjustments at the right moments and, if you are a church, by listening to and heeding the voice of our Still Speaking God.

Today's Day of Reckoning

In 2012 Old South Church arrived at just such a critical juncture.

As I write this article, I am preparing to board a plane for South Dakota, where I have been invited to preach at the 50th Anniversary of the Scotland United Church of Christ. This church was built in 1963, formed from the merger of three German Congregational churches and an Evangelical and Reformed church in and around the small town of Scotland, South Dakota, my ancestral home.

Dear Friends,

As our President and Congress consider the possibility of military intervention in Syria, I want to share these reflections from a professor of Christian ethics at Andover Newton Theological School.

On the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington

We spend our days rubbing elbows with people who are — and admit it! – pains-in-the-butt. That’s right: A boss breathing down your neck. A new hire who can’t get the hang of it. That person at Starbucks who is oblivious to the space she takes up and has walled you off from the half-and-half. The one you’re married to ... who, these days, doesn’t seem like they’re married to you.

i get the fierce urgency of now

so I’m asking with fierce urgency about how

racial tensions and courtroom dissensions

and scraps of evidence (and where’s the heartfelt penitence?)

and the slimmest of suspicions becomes percussive permission

(add a vigilante’s derision)

turning a chambered bullet

into a bully pulpit