when you hear the words “church calendar” what do you think?
when you hear the word “liturgical” what do you think?
different people have different reactions. some might say “i have no idea what either one means.” others might think “liturgical means something lutheran, catholic or episcopalian and it’s usually boring.” because we are a community with an extremely wide breadth and depth of faith experiences, we always want to be cautious about throwing in words and ideas and thoughts that could exclude or throw people for a loop. at the same time, we are deeply dedicated to filling in the space between all of our diversity and finding our common thread. that thread, i believe, is Jesus. sure, there are people who aren’t quite sure about Jesus or have all kinds of weird associations with him that typically come from wacky church experiences, but the one thing we seem to be fairly clear on is that we are trying to learn what it means to follow Jesus. i like to think of our life together as a community as a place to learn what it means to “love Jesus, others, and ourselves and learn to be loved by Jesus, others, ourselves.” it’s a place to learn, a place to practice.
this year together at our saturday evening gatherings we are going to do something we have never intentionally done together since the refuge started 3 1/2 years ago–follow the church calendar. this means that instead of us as a community randomly deciding which passages or themes to use each week, we will use what millions of other Christ-followers around the world are using at the same time. for those of you who aren’t familiar with it, the new year of the church calendar starts with advent, which is the last sunday (saturday for us) in november. we’ve always celebrated advent as a community but then just left it there at christmas eve. this year, we’ll continue with the seasons of the church year all the way through until advent 2010 and see how we do. remember, everything will still be refuge-style. conversational, interactive, experiential, weekly communion and eating together. i think what will be really good for us is we’re going to learn a lot together. we’ll use the gospel passages–the stories of Jesus–as our guiding thoughts. we’ll intersect with the scriptures in ways that we might not have before. we’ll hopefully stir up some trouble–good trouble, the kind that moves us, transforms us.
here’s a helpful way to maybe think through the church seasons. it comes from the story formed calendar:
advent - the season of expectation
christmas - the season of celebration
epiphany (this is where we are now, the upcoming weeks are called “ordinary time”) - the season of illumination
lent - the season of listening
holy week - a time to remember
easter - the season of “hallelujahs” and the
season after pentecost becomes the season of intentional living in love, justice and mercy, in praise and gratitude
my take on it is that it is going to be a challenging & inspiring & fun year for us a community. i am excited about orienting my heart and my head toward the big story of God in a new way, to intersecting with the gospel stories from new angles and letting their power stir up new life in me.
i love that we are a community that is willing to try new, creative things on our faith/life journey together. so much beauty awaits.
i’ll close with this, i think it’s what our year holds for us, what our faith/life journey through the gospels will remind us of, point us to:
“it is in the contemplation of the mysteries of the faith, the deep-down wrestling match of conflicting ideas, that resides the motivating power it takes to become what we see in Jesus. the world around us tells us that life is about money, security, power, and success. but the Gospels tell us that life is about something completely other. real life, the Gospels tell us, is about doing the will of God, speaking for the poor, changing the lives of widows and orphans, exalting the status of women, refusing to make war, laying down our lives for the other, the invisible, and the enemy. it is about taking everyone in instead of leaving everyone out.” - joan chittister, the liturgical year.
here’s to a beautiful, challenging year together. i’ve got a lot to learn. i hope you do, too.
OMG! We’re doing this for the first time at my service, too! I instituted it this yr so we could connect to our rich Christian history. We’re using the traditional readings and prayers for our worship set each wk!
I never knew any of that - sounds good!
I will be following via internet hehe 
Definately not into liturgical calender or other churchy legacies. Another reason to avoid Saturday, though interested in spirituality that works in everyday life, and curious about community.