Denver Seminary

2 For 55 years, Vernon Grounds wrote an annual Christmas letter to the alumni and friends of Denver Seminar y. To use a quintessentially Vernonian phrase, this "epistolar y exercise" began in 1953 when he was the new school's dean, developed during his presidency, and continued through his years as president emeritus and chancellor until declining health brought an end to the letters in 2008. It became a holiday tradition for those of us on the Seminar y mailing list to receive these thoughtful and reflective greetings. I was born the year these letters began, and, when my father joined the faculty in 1957, I became par t of the Denver Seminar y family (eventually as a student and now a faculty member myself), and I remember from an early age the annual arrival of the Dr. Grounds Christmas letter, with his distinctively erudite vocabular y and elegant phrasing. Recently I was able to read ever y one of these letters and identify excerpts for this year's Advent Devotional. Each of Dr. Grounds' letters included personal remarks about the Grounds family; developments and challenges at Denver Seminar y; gratitude for those involved in and sustaining the school; and obser vations about the brokenness, suffering, and conflicts in the world and the need for a Savior. Almost ever y letter concluded with a quotation or two from Dr. Grounds' prolific reading that turned readers' attention and hope to the First and Second Advents of Jesus Christ. This Advent Devotional is organized chronologically, with twenty-four excerpts spanning the years of this unique Christmas correspondence. I pray it will turn your hear t, as it did mine, to the myster y and wonder of God's gift to the world. Marshall Shelley Director of the Doctor of Ministr y Program & Associate Professor of Pastoral Leadership and Ministr y

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