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Cleaning the Editorial Well

Culturally speaking, I guess that the prime time for cleaning usually goes to the season of Spring — hence, our preference for talking about “Spring Cleaning.”

But I have also found that as another year nears its end and a new one is ready to spring loose, thoughts of cleaning make sense too. In this case, I’m talking about cleaning out some important items that remain in the editorial well.

Such cleaning also makes sense relative to the church year. This issue straddles the end of one church year and the beginning of a new one with all the enduring promises and expectations relative to our faith and inherent in the seasons of Advent and Christmas.

Here are some items of interest to pass on:

Themes for 2009
The magazine’s editorial advisory committee has finalized the themes for the upcoming year. We will be looking at six challenges facing the church and our faith.

These will include “The Challenge of...

• Valuing Stewardship’s Assets (January / February)
• The Relevancy of the Christian Faith Today (March / April)
• Loving Both God and Nation — Faith and Patriotism (May / June)
• Connecting Worship and Our Vocational Callings (September / October)
• Telling the Story of Creation in a Scientific and Technological World (November / December)

The January / February 2009 issue on “The Challenge of Valuing Stewardship’s Assets” will focus on seminary student debt, environmental issues relative to the congregation and synod, estate planning, and mobilizing God’s people for mission.

Fitly Spoken Words for Preachers
We’d like to congratulate our book review editor, David von Schlichten, for the publication of his book, Words Fitly Spoken: Biblical Guidance for More Powerful Preaching (CSS Publishing Company, Lima, Ohio, 2008, $11.95).

The pastor of St. James Evangelical Lutheran Church, in Youngstown, Pennsylvania, our book editor has also published poetry, fiction, and non-fiction over the last 20 years and worked as an adjunct lecturer in Reformation Church History and English at the college level.

Words Fitly Spoken focuses on how Scripture is, in one sense, its own kind of homiletics teacher. Biblical writers make use of literary devices to present God’s word through parallelism, anaphora, imagery, hyperbole, and what the author calls “imaginative elaboration.” He also believes that preachers can make use of these same devices to enhance and empower their own proclamation of God’s good news in Christ.

Each chapter includes sample sermons. A glossary of key literary terms and an annotated listing of recommended readings are also included. To order, go to www.csspub.com or call (800) 537-1030.

Words of Thanks
For the past 20 years, “Some Words About...” columnist Terence Mullins has kept himself well-focused. He selected a particular Greek word and asked, “How is it used in the text?” He would cite examples found in the Septuagint, Apocryphal writings, and Christian Scriptures. He would then conclude, under the subhead “Today,” with an explanation of how one might apply the word’s usage to our current context.

Pastor Mullins’ Greek word study ran in every print issue from 1988 to 2007. In 2008, the column migrated to Lutheran Partners Online exclusively. With this issue, “Some Words About...” concludes its mission through our publication.

He wrote 120 columns. His first one, published in the January / February 1988 issue, explained odos, the Greek word for the “way.” His final column, published in our online edition, is eris, the Greek word for “quarrel.” You can read his column at “Some Words About...”. You can use this same link to read some of his most recent columns (click on the link to “past” columns). Also, many of his columns have been collected at Terence Y. Mullins Greek Lexicon. They are arranged in an alphabetized listing of the Greek words he explained.

Thank you, Terence, for your many years of work and service to our readers and, especially, for sharing your love of the Scriptures with us.

This Issue’s Theme
Click through the pages of this issue and you will find articles by authors who are examining changes they have experienced in a generation in worship, the use of Scripture among adults, and confirmation practice, as well as an analysis of how the ELCA call process and mobility system are evolving. Our author’s two-part series on the call process looks at why changes were necessary and then introduces Web-based tools that are making the mobility system more accessible for our rostered leaders and synods.

Wishing you a blessed Advent and celebration of God’s incarnation in Jesus Christ.

William Decker is editor of Lutheran Partners and Lutheran Partners Online, Chicago, Illinois.