This is Ben, and this is Keith, and this is Main Street Lutherans. And today we have what for us is something of a blast from our past. We have Pastor Mark Singh Huber with us, who is currently serving at Advent Lutheran Church in Harleysville, Pennsylvania. But sometime in the past, Pastor Mark was our pastor at Calvary Lutheran Church in Columbus, Ohio. And so, Mark, it's really good to have you with us on the show today.

It is great getting back together again and catching up.

And it's perfect. We were saying it's. We had to work hard to find someone serving a congregation named Advent because Advent is the subject of our episode today. We're going to be talking about the season of Advent, a little bit about where it comes from, what it means. It's, it's somewhat, I don't know, it's, it's, it feels not overlooked for us in our Lutheran churches, but it's the, it's the season that we don't think about as much until suddenly there it is.

Yeah. And probably most known for decorating our churches in time for Christmas, right?

Yeah, something like that. So what kinds of Advent and Christmas making do you have going on at your place, Ben?

We had an Advent tea at church. I'll talk about what's going on at church first for the ladies. They celebrated Mary and had a fun time there. Our pastor grew up Catholic and became Episcopalian before becoming ordained in the elca. So she has a lot of that high church background that, that she likes to do the Mary stuff. And so the Adventee looked like a lot of fun. I wasn't invited, but it looked great. We don't have, we have a normal Wednesday service, so we don't have any special services for church as far as at home. You know, since we don't video, we don't record the video and share it. People won't see that I have bleached my hair for the holidays because in my life, Christmas takes over right as soon as Halloween's over. The. The place I work, the Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan, has a giant Christmas festival. It's called Holiday Nights. We have close to 100,000 people that go through there over the course of about 18 or 19 nights in December. So my life has been consumed by Christmas, really, even before that, when I went to Santa school in October.

So then we have to point out that not only have you bleached your hair, you have bleached your beard and mustache.

And eyebrows.

And eyebrows, yeah.

Yeah. I don't recognize myself in the mirror.

It's a fairly dramatic change.

Yes, indeed.

All right, Mark, what about you? What does Advent and Christmas making look like at your house?

In our house, we haven't really got decorations. It's, it's the, it's the devotions that I'm listening to and following. And we do have a little Advent calendar, which I'll say usually is a December calendar because most of those start December 1st. Not the first Sunday in Advent, but this Sunday.

It's.

This year it syncs up, but I do those. And then at church, we've got the big wreaths that have blue ribbons on them and the eternal candle is in a blue glass container and the beautiful blue pyramids. But other than that, there's no special event. And we don't have a midweek service in Advent, so we don't have any of that extra.

Our house gets decorated for Christmas, typically the day after Thanksgiving. We did that again this year. We don't go shopping and we just like, we really enjoy because we have a Thanksgiving day service at St. Matthew. So the next day is really a nice time to be just completely at home. We, we listen to music, we watch movies, we decorate the house and we just, we just enjoy being together and, and at home it's really just a lovely, lovely day. We do decorate for the Christmas season pretty early at St. Matt's so that stuff was done this weekend as well, even though we, we do make a concerted effort to celebrate Advent as a season. But the, other than the pyramids, the decorations don't shift for us. But we do have, we have some Wednesday evening services, but we do them in conjunction with the two other churches on the corner where we, where we're located in York. Calvary United Methodist Church next door and St Rose of Lima Catholic Church across the street. And so we get together and have three services, one hosted at each congregation on Wednesday nights. And we take turns hosting. We rotate the preaching typically, and it's fun because whoever's hosting is not the person that's preaching. So we're really rotating the leadership amongst the three buildings and that's just kind of cool. And we've been doing that for about 10 years now or so during Advent and sometimes during Lent as well. Yeah, so that's been fun. The first one of those is happening tonight. We're recording this session on Wednesday, the 4th of December. And so the first one of those services is happening this evening.

So let's talk about the season of Advent overall. So logistically, it's four Sundays before Christmas and sometimes Folks have midweek services like, you know, shared with nearby congregations. I think some conferences in the LCA sort of share that, and they do the rotations, often with a meal as part of that.

It's fun. When Christmas Day falls on a Sunday, that means that the four Sundays prior are the four Sundays of Advent. When Christmas Eve falls on a Sunday, it can mess you up because you think, well, Christmas Eve is its own thing. Well, it's really not. So that day, if December 24th is a Sunday, ends up being, in a lot of churches, the fourth Sunday in Advent for the morning services. And then there's a couple of hours of hectic transformation in the sanctuary to switch things over for the Christmas Eve worship services later that day.

So does having Christmas on Wednesday? Is that the best optimal schedule for pastors?

Well, it still makes it pretty tight. If you've got to preach a sermon on Sunday and then turn around and preach one Christmas Eve Tuesday, that can still be pretty tight, but, you know, with some advanced planning, it can work out.

But at least it's the busyness of traveling so much. I can't imagine it's very easy any year, but.

Right, right. And since a lot of churches, we have a saint, St. Matt's does a Christmas Day dinner. So every year on Christmas Day, for about four hours, we serve a complete Christmas dinner to a couple thousand people. And so it's a very busy day. So if that falls on a Sunday, that gets complicated in its own way, logistically speaking. But it. But it works out. But yeah, with. With Christmas Day often being an off day for clergy and people that are really involved in Christmas Eve worship services, choirs and musicians and all of that kind of stuff. Yeah. At least the Christmas Day and the day after can be quiet. If it's kind of in the middle of the week, that works out.

So what's the focus of Advent?

This is a season of anticipation, really. It's one of the younger of the. In terms of, like, when the season itself became kind of structured and, I don't know, organized is not as old as some of the traditions of the church, although some of the traditions of Advent are really ancient. So it's kind of a mixture of old and new. Yeah, it's really a season of anticipation as we're looking at both the birth of Christ, celebrating the original Christmas story, but also the return of Christ, and then the reality that Christ is present with us every day of our lives. So it's kind of finding the kind of wending your way back and forth between all of those.

Yeah. And I think that idea of anticipation and literally Advent means coming, the Advent of our Lord, the coming, the arrival. Actually, that's why our name is Advent. We were part of a congregation that was formed back on the year George Washington was born, which is quite a long time ago, but moved to this location and separated from the Union Church 32 years ago. And they wanted this new beginning, this new Advent, but the coming of our Lord. And so I love. I think this comes from Roman Catholic tradition that the idea of Christ coming in history, in mystery and majesty. History, the event 2000 years ago in Bethlehem, mystery. Christ comes to us. Now we talk about, as Lutherans in the word and sacrament, in the community, and then in majesty, that sense of the second Coming, that promise of Christ coming again. And that always is the focus of the first Sunday of Advent. Yeah.

I think it's intriguing too, because I think that the discussion about second coming is one that Lutherans are not always especially comfortable with. If we have associations of second coming with Apocalypse or the end of the world or some sort of Christian global domination, what was the book and movie series left behind? Yeah, like, kind of all of that is sort of wrapped up kind of culturally in that notion of end times. But really, if we're focusing on Christ's return as, you know, the arrival of peace and hope and love for all creation, I think that's something that's much more in keeping with our understandings of God and Jesus and the. And the gospel message than some of the other stuff that, you know, again, is sort of in that pop culture realm or evangelical Christian realm of apocalypse.

And I think having it on the first Sunday of Advent and Advent, I don't think we had mentioned, is the beginning of the church year for us. It is the first season that it kicks off the church year. So even as it looks to the promise of Christ coming again, this isn't a focus on end times, end of the world. This is beginning with that promise, with that understanding, with God's guarantee of the end. Now we go into where we are now. And I think that's a really good trajectory for the church year, starting with Advent one.

Yeah. So we touched on the themes. Keith was very, very pointedly talking about the themes of the Sundays. So I don't know, are these universal themes or have they changed over time? The first one being hope, then peace, love, or peace, joy, and then love as being associated with the Advent wreath, candles, and maybe a small little piece of liturgy that goes along with that. Does that match up to A historic thing, or is that something more new?

Mark, do you have any thought on that?

I. Yeah, I do. I had done a lot of reading about this because I came from a church where we had. And I don't know if I've got the order correct, but the Bethlehem Candle, the Shepherd candle, the Mary candle and the angel candle. And that focus. And I've seen several other ones, too. The hope, Peace, joy, love, really matched the text. And joy, absolutely. That third Sunday, traditionally, if you want to go Latin, Gaudate Sunday, Rejoice is a lot is a much longer tradition. But those names are not ancient, they're more modern, they're helpful. They are not in any way prescribed. And there are a variety of them.

And it sounds like the one matches up to the Nativity scenes. So each of the characters. Right.

Correct. I think the peace. I think the hope. I mean, this week we have a text that explicitly is talking about peace always. Third Sunday is joy. So I think those match the text more. The others. Yeah. Anticipate the manger scene more.

Yeah. And I guess that's something we didn't put in the notes, but a lot of churches will start the wise men far off and the shepherds too. Right. You add to the Nativity scene usually if it's set up near the altar, that you keep adding to it as we go through Advent sort of drawing, maybe that's more oriented toward the children helping build the story.

Yep. And the little Christ child doesn't show up in the manger until Christmas Eve then.

So about the Advent wreath, we also do maybe a Yule log at home. We used to do that when I was a kid. We haven't done that with our children. But do you guys do any of that at home? Do you do a Yule log or anything?

So. No.

Yeah, the. I'd forgotten about that. Dad. Every year would go out and get a log from our log pile and drill holes to put the candles in. And. And we do that every Sunday night of Advent. So. Bringing back. Bringing back these old memories.

Yeah.

That gets the counting down, but it loses the circle piece of the wreath.

Right. That hard to find a round log like that, though. So we've talked a little bit about the tone of sort of the apocalyptic sort of text that come through there and at least how we see it. It shares a little bit of penitence, I think, with Lent as far as purifying ourselves for the entry of Jesus into the world, which I think is a little.

You say that I remember from when I was A kid. You know, we often focus on the change of color. So Advent is. The current color of Advent is blue. And it has been in most Lutheran churches for, I don't know, maybe the last 40 or 50 years. Mark says about. Right.

A good 30.

Yeah. I always heard that the specific shade of blue is a very dark blue. It's the color of the sky just before dawn comes. So the sun is coming over the horizon and the sky is losing its complete solid blackness with the beginnings of light. And I think that's a fantastic image for Advent, that notion that morning is coming, the dawn from on high is breaking upon us, and that. That blue is a. Is a color of. Of hope. But, yeah, prior to that, Advent was purple. And it was really easy, at least I think, for the people in the pews. I'm sure that, you know, trained clergy and church leaders would. Would have more nuance than this, but it was really easy for a typical person to say, well, Advent is just the. The season of Lent before Christmas. It's. It's. It's a little darker. It's a little more depressing. We're focusing on penitence and trying to get ready for, you know, trying to make ourselves good enough for Jesus to be born. And so I think that the shift towards blue gives Advent its own flavor, kind of apart from Lent, and it also lets Lent focus, you know, more in its own ways on, you know, the wilderness and the resurrection and all of those kinds of things. Yeah. I think that the color for Advent being blue is really both, know, a reminder of the darkness that we struggle with, but the light that's coming as well. Yeah.

And I think that was very intentional and very helpful. Moving from the purple, there isn't. I mean, we've got John the Baptist saying repent. So it's in the Advent texts, but it's a very different flavor. It's that preparing for the coming of Christ, that has a different sense to it. And the blue, which I've also. I like that morning dawn color, also the color of hope in general, color of royalty has been used for that. All. I think switching to that was not just about selling more pyramints and another whole set of liturgical wear, but had a deep theological reason to it. And if I can say something about candles also.

Oh, yeah.

In the Advent wreath, when the color was purple, the tradition would be three purple candles, but one rose, not pink for the Virgin Mary, one rose candle for the third Sunday in Advent, which was again, gaudate Rejoice Sunday. So in the middle of this penitential, you had this rejoicing. And then you went back to one more Sunday of penitential. When we moved to blue. There are still people who will keep that rose candle in there, but liturgically speaking, when you move to blue, you don't need that rose candle. Four blue candles works. And so the move went from the penitential to the hope and the dawning, and just a very different feel, a more hopeful, a more energetic, a more anticipatory, just leaning forward as we begin this church year.

So historically, our songs for Advent have been in minor keys. They've been slower. Has that changed? Are there new Advent songs that reflect that more hopeful attitude?

There are. I mean, I'm thinking right away Awake, Awake. There are some. We've been singing some pretty bouncy Advent hymns. And what's the. I'm going blank on it now. The getting ready for Christ coming. I'll think of it.

Well, I told you way back when that my favorite Advent song was Wake Awake, but it was always played way too slow. Like if wake awake for night is flying, if it goes at a flying pace, it's kind of fun to sing. Right? But when it's wake awake for night is flying. Yeah. For night is snoozing. But if you up the pace on that double speed or so, it turns into something that's very different.

And so we have two wonderful musicians on staff here, one of them, Deacon Margaret, who's been on the show a couple of times, and her father is our organist, the Reverend Dr. Stephen Falconer. And both of them, and I agree with them, but they can speak more intelligently about it than I can. They'll say, hall, how, you know, the season of Advent is too short for the. For the fantastic number of wonderful Advent hymns that we have in our tradition. And it is a season where there are new ones being created every year. It's just one that it's a season whose themes and the Scriptures lend themselves, I think, to hymnody. And yet. Yeah, still many of them are still in minor keys, but they're still fun to sing and beautiful songs.

Yeah, yeah. That sort of moves us into some adaptations. I think it's important to note that not every congregation celebrates Advent the same way that we have a lot of. You know, we keep coming back to the idea that the ELCA is a merger of a very Episcopal, a very top down structure with a Congregationalist structure, a bottom up structure. And so a lot of congregations take a lot of independence in how they celebrate that and family wise, we celebrate or we honor Advent in different ways. For sure. We've already talked about Advent calendars and the ways those happen. Certainly Aldi has turned the Advent calendar release into a holiday of its own with their, I don't know how many calendars they release all at once. And people line up at the stores to get those and usually finish them before Thanksgiving.

My kids got three Advent calendars this year. Yeah. One with makeup supplies, one with, oh God, I'm forgetting right now, probably something to eat, chocolate or something. And then one that is socks, which is actually, I think a 12 days of Christmas calendar. But yeah, she decided to start working on that one early.

So, yeah, I saw an Advent calendar from a yarn supply place in England where they do an unboxing video each day and they encourage everyone to open their things together. And so the anticipation, I think that's a neat little thing to do that because they ship it all out to you ahead of time and then you're supposed to wait to open each box at a time.

Mark mentioned in passing there that those calendars don't really tend to correspond with the season of Advent as much as with the month of December. They'll have 24 or 25 items that you open up. And you know, this year, with the first Sunday of advent being December 1st, that works out most years it, it does not. And that's, that's fine. But it does kind of show how the, the traditions of the church and the traditions of commerce have sort of kind of overlapped and borrowed from each other.

Well, it's, it's pretty difficult to have a different Advent calendar manufactured for every year based on the liturgical calendar. For sure. I think. Well, someday we're not going to do it this year, but we'll talk about Christmas and its history and how fraught American Christmas is with all that. So the short story is that American churches gave up on. Actually the Puritans abolished the entire church year. So they didn't have seasons. And so that's where our traditions come from, is from a church that gave up the entire seasons structure. And so they had no Christmas, they had no Advent, they had no Easter, no Lent, they just had Sundays. And so that let the secular world take over the holidays and the celebrations seasonally. And so then the history of America was trying to take that back to the churches a little bit. But so wreath wise, so we've got the Advent wreaths at church. Do they correlate at all to our Christmas wreaths?

I think historically they do and this is connected to the colors of red and green being associated with Christmas, which is interesting. We already mentioned that the color for Advent is either going to be purple in some traditions still, or blue. And the color for Christmas is really white. But red and green are still associated with Christmas so strongly. And that goes back to a couple of things. Certainly Christmas trees themselves are green. And some of the first Christmas trees were decorated with apples, which could still be kept fresh in northern climates even into the wintertime. And so you still had an opportunity to be eating fresh fruit, even though there was a lot of stuff not growing in the ground anymore. So you would have these. These apples that were decorating Christmas trees. And. And then also. And maybe you guys know something about this, too. Passion Plays, I think they were called Stories of Jesus's Life, which were told in wintertime as a form of entertainment. But they would. They were, you know, also connected to, you know, pagan symbols that were borrowed by. By the early church as it moved to different parts of the world. And so the idea of a wreath, which would be a symbol of eternity. But, you know, in. In both Christian and non Christian circles, we get. We get borrowed and. And then these things becoming red with holly berries and. And the green of the greens, the evergreen reeds, evergreen boughs themselves being a symbol of eternal life through the dark of winter. There's a lot of, kind of shifting origins of some of this stuff. That's why I say some of the traditions of Advent really significantly predate the kind of organized season as we know it today.

Sure. And this is. This is our last main topic here. And that is what really brought Mark to mind when we decided to talk about Advent, is that there is a. I don't know that I'd call it a full movement, but there's a suggestion in places that we maybe shift Advent a little bit or expand Advent or do something different with it. And Mark wrote a piece about that years ago on Facebook, and I read it, and I'd been thinking about it since very few pastors around me would be brave enough to alter it quite the way it's been suggested. But do you want to talk about how that works out or what you've done in the past there?

Yeah. And the reason for that was my feeling. Two conflicting feelings that were mutually exclusive, it seemed. One is Advent as a time of waiting, a time of anticipation, not rushing. Christmas, but Advent as its separate season seems so needed. With all the commercialism, with all the busyness, I crave an Advent four weeks of the at least four weeks. And there's tradition of a lot more than that in the past. And then on the other hand is the sense that Christmas, if the church isn't doing anything with Christmas until we get to December 24, then we are giving up the songs. I mean I have nothing wrong with Christmas specials and Jingle Bells and Frosty the Snowman, but if all the kids and the adults are hearing up until December 24th is those. And the spirit of Christmas is being defined by the Hallmark movies and the ABC specials, we're missing our chance to speak our faith and speak our understanding of a tremendously important season of the year by ignoring it when all society is focused on it in December. And so the idea was can we do both? Can we have the festivals of Reformation last Sunday in October? This is for Lutherans and some other denominations, All Saints Sunday, first Sunday in November and then go to Advent and have four weeks of Advent starting the second Sunday in November. It is less in competition with Christmas around now. Christmas already started like beginning of September in some places but, but you can still speak without sounding like a Grinch and call people to that time of Advent and then have two or three Sundays where you get to celebrate Christmas and you get to sing the Christmas hymns and tell the Christmas story and make sure that the church is having a chance to give that faith account in there. And and so that was the idea that instead of having Advent be the four Sundays prior to Christmas Day, have them earlier and then allow a couple Sundays of Christmas celebration. Christmas joy.

How do people like that? Was it a hard adjustment?

Well, I've had mixed things at different places. The previous congregation, we did it and there was some pushback, especially within the traditional congregation. Traditional service, the contemporary was a little more up for it, but it was really interesting. We did a second year and then the third year it was one of our most adamant traditional people said I really like that. I mean it was like a no brainer that we're going to continue that. I don't know whether they've continued or how long they've continued after I've left. But several other churches in the conference then also adopted that. So it spread. When I came to this congregation, we did it a couple years, but we have a very significant leader who really has not liked it. And so it's been a figuring out of how we go. And this year we're actually doing the traditional Advent which again, I mean just in December, I love Advent. I don't want Christmas seeping into Advent. But I feel Like I'm missing a chance to speak God's word to where everybody else is. I have to pretend something else when we come in here. So that's my own difficulty with it. But a lot of people enjoyed it here also.

Yeah. And maybe it's not so much the case now with membership decline where it is. I think the people who show up at church show up at church. We don't have the folks who teeter so much. But I know when I was in Fort Wayne, we planned something for the Sunday after Christmas because hardly anybody was there. And the people that were there in particular. We should do a topic or an episode on this idea that I've got of random acts of hospitality. But we did this random act of hospitality to decorate Christmas cookies the Sunday after Christmas. And because the people that are at church, or at least in that congregation after Christmas are the folks who didn't have family over and didn't have family to visit at Christmas time. And so those were folks who needed more social contact. And so we provided that with this festival thing afterwards. But I think the Sunday before and after Christmas this week or this year are going to be some low attendance Sundays. And so our chances to celebrate Christmas with our congregation are very, very small. Maybe on Christmas Eve, but. But the Sunday experience of Christmas we will almost entirely miss. Right. Because we'll have epiphany, you know, the next Sunday after.

Right.

So it'll be. So I think we miss our congregation with Christmas sometimes.

Yeah. And in the church traditionally there are 12 days of Christmas. It's not just a song. It is December 25 to January 6. But other than Christmas Eve, we don't get many people in that Easter. Our church has seven Sundays because we say it's too big for one Sunday. So the Easter event, as it should be, has seven Sundays. And yet for Christmas we get one big smash on Christmas Eve and then some people dribbling in a few other days and that's it.

Yeah, yeah. So I see a good reason to, you know, get there before Christmas break starts for the kids so that they're not off to grandma's house. And we. Because the people that we do get often are not the families with kids. We get the grandparents that have grandkids on Christmas Eve. Right. And so we're not celebrating with our normal group on Christmas. So. Yeah, Well, I find that really interesting. We'll include some links to some of the documents about that in a group that. That's talking about that in particular. Oh, what was that? The Advent Project seminar, we'll have a link to their information that gives some advocacy for that. So how does Advent hold up in our culture? Is it something that is falling aside or is it something that is growing with intensity within our churches?

It's interesting and some of the previous conversation plays into this. If, you know, our American society doesn't really know what Advent is. They've heard of Advent calendars and they look at those as something connected to Christmas in the church. I think you're absolutely right, Mark, when you say that we struggle to hold that tension between not celebrating Christmas too early and really allowing for the season of Advent to be something, but also wanting to be able to, you know, be the church in the world and speak to where the world is at right at the moment. And that's, that's really tough. So I, I think that, I think that the church struggles with kind of holding all of that together at one time, but I think that that's what Advent allows us, is to try to hold it all together and not just give up and say that Thanksgiving is really the first day of the Christmas season and that's all we're going to do until we get to New Year's. And, you know, I think the season of Advent does lend itself to trying to be faithful to really to all of the Christmas message from the church perspective. I was at a breakfast this morning where the presenter shared about A Blue Christmas, which is a tradition that a lot of churches have where they'll offer either a particular devotion or even a service of worship on a Sunday evening or a weekend or something. And it's a Christmas themed service, but targeting specifically at folks that are really struggling to feel the Christmas joy this year. Maybe that's because of the death of a loved one. You know, my mother in law passed away this summer and so the holiday season for my family is very different this year because we're, we're lacking the presence of the matriarch, you know, so we're still celebrating, but it's tinged. So it might be that it might be the loss of a job, it might be, you know, just family struggles or financial issues, or just the general stress of trying to live up to what the pop culture around you is telling you is the most wonderful time of the year and you're just not feeling it. And that can be hard. And so a Blue Christmas lets you acknowledge those tensions. Anyhow, the gentleman that spoke this morning said, but Blue Christmas still has Christ in it. And that was a really great message. Even held up a photograph an image of sort of a war torn urban landscape with the holy family huddling together at the bottom of it, buried under the rubble. And so Joseph protectingly holding his arms over Mary and baby Jesus, sheltering them from the destruction around them. And so that was a really powerful image.

Yeah.

And I think Advent, you know, is a part of that.

And adding to that, then when you're talking about how does Advent hold up? I think that one word we haven't said. I don't know if this is a word or a couple. Countercultural.

Yeah.

Advent is a countercultural season in a sea, in a time when there's so much consumerism, when there's a time when there's the focus on the happy, happy, joy, joy, the most wonderful time of the year. And the happiness is an emotion that we're chasing. Here is a season that calls us back to reflect on what God's doing, to reflect on cosmic things, to reflect on God's work in the face of powers and principalities, all that stuff. Whether it is those four weeks just before Christmas when the counterculture is really tough or whether you move it earlier in some way, I think Advent is vital. I think we need Advent.

Yeah, yeah. I think that sums it up. That. Yeah, yeah. I think that knocks us right into our catechism questions. So, Keith, what was our catechism question from the last episode?

Our catechism question from the last episode was what is the literal meaning of the word synod? Your options were people to complain to, bonded by the word on the way together or singing the same hymns. The answer is on the way together comes from their Greek word synodos, which is an amalgamation of the word road and together. And so, yeah, yeah, synod means on the way together.

All right.

And what about this week's question, Ben?

Yeah, since. Since Advent is a season of anticipation. And our next episode is about the you gathering. Where will the 2027 National Youth Gathering be held? Will it be in Minneapolis? Will it be in Orlando, New Orleans or Pasadena, California? You can respond by emailing or messaging us on social media. Even we have a telephone number, so you can call that. All of that is in the episode notes. Pastor Mark, I want to, you know, share our appreciation with you being with us. You were instrumental in both of our lives for a number of years. Really appreciate being able to be in contact. So much so. And thanks for being on the show. We'll find other reasons to bring you on.

I was going to say I love this opportunity and I look back on the times that we shared at Calvary with, with wonderful, wonderful memories. So thank you. This has been a. And thank you for what you're doing and getting. Getting these interesting messages and helpful teachings out to people.

Well, thank you for that flattery. You do know we're not paying you, right?

Santa Claus might bring by some candy canes or something, right? That's right.

Not until after Advent, right?

Main Street Lutherans is hosted by Keith Fair and Ben Fog, and the show is produced by Fote Media Productions. Find all our contact information, links and a transcript in the episode notes. Until next time, go in peace. Serve the Lord.

Thanks be to God.