Ever since a friend first emailed me a link to St. Paul Arts & Media group’s incredibly cute re-telling of the Christmas story a few years ago, it feels like it almost wouldn’t be Christmas without something front the creative folks at St. Paul’s Church in Auckland, New Zealand. Totally unfair, of course, to keep assuming these folks will come up with more creative videos every year, let alone to have them make or break my Christmas. 🙂 And yet so far they have never disappointed. This year’s effort is from St. Paul’s Arts ‘n Kids team (SPANK) and is a take on what media coverage might have been in...

Quick Note: This a letter relating to the First Sunday in Christmas, Dec. 28. I’ve posted on the Christmas Eve and Day readings here. Dear Partner in Preaching, Sometimes, all we can do is sing. This past fall we observed the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. And so there were the requisite reviews in the news media of the events leading up to, surrounding, and following that remarkable and largely unforeseen event. One of the items that was routinely left out of those reviews, however, was the weeks of peaceful protests by the citizens of Leipzig that led up to the fall. Gathering on Monday evenings by candlelight...