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Dear Old South Church,

Yesterday, 150 of Old Southers—an intergenerational assembly sporting a marvelous and mad assortment of headgear—departed Festival Worship and promenaded to the Women's Memorial on Commonwealth Avenue to pay tribute to Old South Church member Phillis Wheatley, on the occasion of her 259th birthday. Once arrived at the statues of Phillis Wheatley, Abigail Adams and Lucy Stone, we addressed Phillis, singing We Shall Overcome and Happy Birthday, delivered her mail and celebrated with cupcakes. Surely Old South has started a new tradition.

On Sunday evening we will do a bold and new thing: launch Evening Worship, our fourth weekly worship service. It is no small feat to design, staff, and launch a new service. It requires imagination, experimentation, adjustment, programming, ushers, musicians, refreshments, set up and break down, PR, recruitment and enough demographic information to make an educated guess as to whom we might attract and at what time. We've done the lion's share of our work of preparation. We are ready.

On the occasion on the 222nd anniversary of Benjamin Franklin’s death (April 17, 1790)

Benjamin Franklin’s contributions were elegant, abundant and stunningly diverse. From Founding Father to diplomat, from the first fire department to the first lending library, and from printer to scientist, he earned the moniker: the First American.