We all enjoy receiving cards and letters at Christmas. Whether from family far away or friends across town, they remind us of the relationships with which we have been blessed. Often, even in this aggressively secular age, those same cards and letters remind us of the great gift our heavenly Father gave us that first Christmas long ago in Bethlehem.

By the time this issue of The Lutheran Witness arrives on your doorstep, many of us will have been thoroughly inundated by all the relentlessly commercial manifestations of the coming Christmastide.

In human terms, 500 years is a long time. The world in which Luther lived half a millennium ago seems distant and hazy when we compare it to the life we lead today.

magazine, is for laypeople, while Reporter, our monthly newspaper, is for professional church workers and congregational lay leaders. This principle has served us well

With this issue, we salute and say goodbye to Mr. Don
Folkemer, managing editor of The Lutheran Witness
for the past eight years. Under Don, who retired
July 31st, the Witness held its own during a tough time for denominational magazines, whose circulations across the board have been falling for many years.

Missouri Synod, a constant challenge is trying to stay in touch with everyone to some degree. This isn’t easy to do. There are 2.5 million of us in some 900,000 households attending 6,150 congregations in 35 districts from Maine to Hawaii.