This year, viewers from 30 countries watched St. Olaf College's five choirs and orchestra in a live stream of the festival’s final performance. Photos courtesy of St. Olaf College
The St. Olaf Christmas Festival, one of the oldest and most highly regarded musical Christmas celebrations in the country, is a constantly changing ‘global event,’ bringing a message the world wants and needs to hear.
Emigdio Moronta and his daughter chat with Vince Anderson (right, in gray hat) in the bodega Moronta runs in the Ridgewood neighborhood of Queens. Photo by Whitney Kidder
Twenty-four mostly small-scale grocers in Brooklyn and Queens post art in their store windows in a series of displays modeled on an Advent calendar.
The Rev. Justin Coleman, author of "Home for Christmas." Photo courtesy of University UMC
In his new Advent study resource called “Home for Christmas,” a pastor shares stories of people struggling to escape gangs, homelessness and drug addiction -- stories that offer hope, love, joy and peace.
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Young people are trained through social media to graze. But an annual practice of opening Advent calendars can help them learn to gaze, imagining the world as it could be and not just as it is.
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As Advent begins, we stand once again amid the destruction left by devastating storms. In the darkness, we yearn for light, a UMC bishop writes.
Visitors to the spontaneous Puerto Rican Christmas-season parties called parrandas often play the güiro, the instrument pictured here. Creative Commons / le Guiro
A pastor shares the traditions of her native island, where big parties with steaming bowls of delicious soup called asopao symbolize abundance, hope and resistance.
After worship services in the Bethany memory care unit, retired United Methodist Bishop Kenneth Carder goes around the room, greeting each resident by name. Carder is serving as interim chaplain at Bethany. Photo by Matt Brodie.
Serving as chaplain at a memory care facility, a retired UMC bishop learns that the longing for home is an innate hunger, buried deeper than our memories or imaginings. And it lies at the heart of Advent.
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Mary and Joseph lost Jesus amidst the Passover crowds. They tried their best but weren’t perfect, and I don’t have to be either, writes a pastor.
Jesse Lawton German collects the offering during services at Triune Mercy Center, an active, vibrant church that is both a place of worship and a thriving hub of ministries.
Photos by Ken Osborn
More than just a ministry to people who are homeless, Triune Mercy Center in Greenville, South Carolina, is a vibrant -- and sometimes messy -- church where rich, poor and those in between worship and serve together.
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In our world of instant delivery and fast passes, the countercultural season of Advent offers no shortcuts. Instead, we must walk slowly alongside the expectant couple, beholding the ordinary and tuning our hearts to the Holy Spirit, writes a Presbyterian pastor.