At the church where I serve as Senior Pastor, our Advent focus this year has been around the theme Making Room in the Neighborhood as we explore what it means that the God of all creation “became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood” (John 1:14, MSG). To lean fully into this theme, we’ve been exploring some of the wisdom of one of the best neighbors the world has ever had, the late (Mister) Fred Rogers (1928-2003).

For those who don’t know Fred Rogers, he was a gentle, steady voice in children’s television, the creator and host of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, who spent his life teaching people how to slow down, pay attention, and treat one another with dignity.

As I have been watching videos and revisiting Fred Rogers’ words this Advent season, I have also found myself reflecting on my own memories of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Growing up, my family did not have cable or satellite, so most of my TV time involved crumpling tin foil around the “bunny-eared” antenna screwed into the back of our console set, hoping to coax a few free channels out of the airwaves. One of those precious channels was PBS. For a child of the 1990s without cable, PBS was entertainment gold. And for a kid living in a personal world that often felt unstable and uncertain, the moment those opening notes of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood came through the speakers, something in me settled as one of the few calm-speaking adult voices in my life hit my ears. I was welcomed into a space of calm and care, where I was told that I mattered and had purpose, no matter what was swirling around me.

As a child, I didn’t track just how important that was, but as an adult, I have come to realize that sitting in Mister Rogers’ living room each week was as formative for who I am today as any other regular experience in my childhood. He taught me that I could achieve anything if I just worked hard and knew that my worth was not defined by anything but who I am. He taught me that others around me are worthy of grace and love. He taught me that the world is loud, and finding moments of quiet to slow down is critical to surviving amid the noise.

As a person of faith who has become a pastor, I have also come to appreciate the undercurrent of Mr. Rogers’ philosophy of life: that God has created all of us in the image of God, and that means within us is the most important and special thing that nothing could ever take away from us. Many do not know that Fred Rogers was an ordained Presbyterian minister who carried a Bachelor of Divinity from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. His vocational call did not lead him to fill a traditional church pulpit, but that does not mean that he did not preach in his own calm and caring way through the screens of televisions from 1968-2001. As he sat on the bench and changed his shoes over 900 times, he sang the themes of his Christian faith as he invited all of us to be his neighbor, and the neighbor of those around us.

During this Advent season, I find myself wondering what it would look like for us to recover a bit of Fred Rogers’ posture in our own neighborhoods. Advent invites us to pay attention to the God who moves toward us with quiet humility. Mister Rogers spent his life doing the same, choosing tenderness over hurry and presence over performance. In a world that rewards volume and speed, his steady voice reminds us that the deepest transformations often happen in moments that feel small.

The heart of Advent is the belief that God makes room for us, not because we have earned it, but because love chooses to draw near. And perhaps that is why Mister Rogers resonates so deeply during this season for me. His entire life was a kind of lived parable that said: you are worth showing up for. You are worth listening to. You are someone to whom God draws close. When we slow down, when we create space for our own feelings, when we welcome the people around us with gentleness, we are practicing the same kind of hospitality God extended in becoming human.

So as we continue our Advent journey, I hope we take Fred Rogers’ simple wisdom as both comfort and calling. Comfort, because God meets us with the same patient care Mister Rogers once extended through a television screen. Calling, because we are invited to reflect that care into the lives around us. There is always room for another act of kindness, another moment of listening, another reminder to someone that they matter.

My prayer this season is that we become the kinds of neighbors who make room, not out of duty, but out of the deep assurance that God has already made room for us. And may that assurance shape our words, our pace, our presence, and our neighborhoods, until the peace and gentleness we long for become the very atmosphere we help create.

It is, after all, a beautiful day in God the neighborhood God has moved in to. May we live like it.