Do you need a rest from the world's headlong rush to Christmas?

Some place where you and your family can slow down and prepare for Christ's birth at the churches rather than the world's pace?

A midweek evening Advent service is the perfect time for your first visit to a Christ-centered cross-focused Lutheran

Church. Learn more on the Find a Church page at IssuezTC.org or send an email to Talk Back at

at Issue ZTC.org. Savior of the nation's car, virgin son, make here your home,

marble now all him and earth, that the Lord chose such a bird.

The Advent hymns Savior of the Nations come.

We are close to celebrating this season that many people see as a pre-Christmas season,

or maybe even the start of the Christmas season.

What is Advent? Why do Christians celebrate it? And what do we need to

know about the texts, the hymns, and the various rites and rituals unique to Advent to help us

better celebrate the season? Welcome back to Issues, Etc. I'm Todd Wilkin, joining us to discuss

the season of Advent.

Dr. Leonard Payton, he's pastor of St. John Lutheran Church in Forest Park, Illinois,

author of a column for the December issue of the Lutheran Witness magazine titled A Walk Through Advent. Leonard, welcome back.

Very good to be with you again.

You have a background in evangelicalism.

What do you think most evangelicals know or think about

the Advent season? Not much, actually. Evangelicalism in our country historically has been

fairly detached from the church year.

There's an awareness of course of Christmas somehow and Easter.

But even then, it's not unusual on Christmas day to not be in church and instead to be at home with family.

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