At the heart of it all, as so vividly expressed by Luther’s famous Christmas hymn, “From Heaven Above to Earth I Come”—the focus of two of our stories this month—is the birth of God’s Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ.

As our authors this month remind us, we have much to be thankful for, not only in the temporal sense—from the perspective of the rest of the world, we are blessed beyond measure even in these difficult times— but also in the spiritual sense, for we have been redeemed by Christ, sanctified by the Holy Spirit, and counted as our heavenly Father’s own dear children.

We cover a lot of ground in this issue of The Lutheran Witness, from an overview of the current work of LCMS World Mission to stories about “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” Martin Luther’s most famous hymn

Maybe it’s just our growing older, but each year, September seems to arrive more quickly than anticipated. Suddenly, our vacation is a receding memory, the kids are back in school, Labor Day is upon us, and we are left to wonder, “What happened to summer and all the plans I made? Where did the time go?” One item that occupies much of our time is work.

Yes, print remains a significant means of communication (in spite of numerous premature obituaries); yet new tools increasingly play important roles in the ways in which we hold conversations with one another.

In many ways, this is a “family” issue. Our cover story focuses on fathers and sons. A second story highlights a
strong sense of family and vocation in the vineyards of California, while a third uncovers a bit of “family” history as it pertains to our Synod and its early years.

As with the past few May issues of The Lutheran Witness, you hold in your hands a magazine dedicated principally to the topic of pastoral formation and education, and to the important work our pastors do
among us.

The son of the widow of Zarephath, the son of the Shunammite woman, the young man of Nain, the daughter of Jairus, Lazarus. What do they all have in common? All of them, by the grace of God, were brought back from death to life. Imagine the celebration, the joy, the wonder.

Normally, in this section, we highlight the stories we feature in the current issue of The Lutheran Witness. However, this month we encourage you to visit the Web site of our sister publication, Reporter, where you will find…

In many respects, the issue of The Lutheran Witness you hold in your hands offers an international perspective. In these pages our authors range from Palestine (Bethlehem and the West Bank) to Brazil, Iran, and finally back to our own U.S.

Peculiar. Today, when we use that word in conversation, our implication is
often pejorative. But as Dr. Lawrence Rast Jr. points out in our cover story, there is an older tradition regarding the use of peculiar, too, a sense that means special, unique, and yes, different in a good way.