Pastors Should Like People (Not Just Love Them)  Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is a husband, father, pastor, and writer. He serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai in Ojai, California. Gavin blogs regularly at gavinortlund.com

Helping Is More Than Good Intentions. - Amy Simpson

 Advent, explained From chocolate calendars to wreaths in church, the season is all about anticipation.   Alissa Wilkinson is the film critic at Vox.com She's been writing about film and culture since 2006, and her work has appeared at Rolling Stone, The Washington Post, Vulture, RogerEbert.com, The Atlantic, Books & Culture, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Paste, Pacific Standard, and others. Alissa is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle and a 2017-18 Art of Nonfiction writing fellow with the Sundance Institute. Before joining Vox, she was the chief film critic at Christianity Today. Alissa is also an associate professor of English and humanities at The King's College in New York City, where she teaches criticism and cultural theory. She is the co-author, with Robert Joustra, of How to Survive the Apocalypse: Zombies, Cylons, Faith, and Politics at the End of the World (Eerdmans, 2016).

The Case for an Early Christmas - Christian history gives us reason to see Advent and Christmas as coexistent, not separate.    Courtney Ellis is a pastor, speaker, and author of the forthcoming Uncluttered: Free Your Space, Free Your Schedule, Free Your Soul (Feb. 2019, Rose Publishing).