How Do We Keep Advent Four Sundays Long?
Every pastor and worship planner knows the challenge
of keeping Advent in church. As the malls are blaring Christmas
music and everyone is having Christmas parties, as the Christmas
lights come out at Thanksgiving and everyone dons special Christmas
clothes, somehow we are supposed to restrain ourselves from
celebrating the coming of the Christ child until Christmas Eve.
Why are we supposed to do this? And how is it possible?
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How a Congregation Can
Celebrate Human Rights Day
Here are some practical steps:
1. Learn more about current human
rights abuses.
Two Web sites are particularly useful.
– Human Rights Watch, www.hrw.org
– United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights,
www.unhchr.ch
2. Read the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights.
– Pocket-size copies of the UDHR and ideas
for educational units on the UDHR are available from the People’s
Movement for Human Rights Education, www.pdhre.org.
– An electronic version of the UDHR can be found at www.unhchr.ch.
– To find out more about the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s
response to these issues, go to www.pcusa.org/acswp/whatweredoing.htm.
3. Speak out if you feel that human rights
are being violated.
– File a complaint with a court.
– Inform the police.
– Inform a defenders organization that can take legal
action.
– Tell a human rights group to investigate.
– Tell the media.
– Get a group together for education about the violation.
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