In this season of Advent, many celebrate the wonderous birth of a child in Bethlehem. But there is more to the Advent story than the birth of a single child.
Life is a miracle.
And each new birth brings forth a call to Christians everywhere to preserve and enrich life, physically, emotionally and spiritually. Ana and Tod Gobledale, former Common Global Ministries Board missionaries, were called to one such birth in Zululand, Africa. Stories and Features Waiting for the wonderous gift Bethlehem and Christmas are places of seemingly imponderable contradictions, of haughty rulers and humble shepherds, of angels and tanks, writes Dale Bishop, executive minister of the UCC's Wider Church Ministries. In the station of these contradictions, says, Bishop, do we await an even more imponderable, wonderous gift. While there may yet be 'a Word from the Lord' about sex, the Bible may not be the place to look for it.