This is the time of yr after we pause our calendars to create space to have a good time Holy Week—rehearsing the gospel events leading as much as the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
For centuries, Christians have followed a church calendar to mark seasons and special days honoring Jesus and the gospel: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Pentecost, and Ordinary Time (which marks the time periods in between Lent and Advent). And while most non-denominational churches are accustomed to these in theory, they have an inclination to only take part in one or two all year long.
We might hand out palm leaves on Palm Sunday or meet for evening worship on Good Friday—and we almost all the time have a good time Resurrection Sunday with way more pomp and circumstance than our usual services. Later, in December, we’d do something special for every of the Sundays leading as much as Christmas. But a few of these other historic church events, like Ash Wednesday or Pentecost Sunday, as an illustration, are most frequently observed in additional liturgical traditions and denominations.
Expecially for “low-church” Christians, the thought of following the church calendar generates mixed reactions. As inheritors of each the Protestant Reformation and evangelical revivalism, many non-denominational believers pride themselves on not adhering to tradition—which is typically viewed as manmade and unbiblical, meant just for Catholics, and even a stumbling block to authentic faith and worship. It’s not unusual to listen to, “It’s not a faith; it’s a relationship,” and for such events to be likened to the “religious festivals” seemingly downplayed in Col. 2:16.
And so, on the Monday after Easter weekend, most evangelical churches resume their commonly scheduled programming. Instead of constant to order congregational gatherings, special events, and sermon series across the life and ministry of Jesus, we start patterning them after other cultural events and holidays, like summer break, back-to-school, and even the Super Bowl. Our lives once more change into centered around our work, school, extracurricular activities, hobbies, entertainment—and other priorities driven by our personal goals or skilled aspirations.
But what if, this yr, even essentially the most liturgy-skeptical amongst us discovered how the church calendar may also help us live out the truths we have a good time during Holy Week—long after it’s over? As Mike Cosper explains, there’s a profit in following the sacred traditions of the historic church:
To many Protestants, the church calendar may look like an arbitrary regulation, a sworn statement to authority and micromanagement from Rome, but for its authors, it was designed pastorally. The church calendar was designed to walk believers through the story of the gospel every yr, from the incarnation to the ascension. If we allow historic prejudice to paint our perspective too heavily, we lose sight of the sensible, pastoral creativity that shaped among the church’s inventions.
In the words of pastor Andrew Wilson, “Calendars should not neutral; they narrate a specific vision of the world.” The calendars we live by tell a story about what we value and the way we view our identity and purpose. The way we plan our years, months, and days cultivates certain rhythms, habits, and fruit in our lives. And if we examine the spiritual fruit we’re (or aren’t) producing, we’d realize how our schedule impacts our ability to change into more like Christ.
Spiritual formation can also be not neutral—which implies if our habits should not discipling us in the best way of Jesus, they’re, by default, shaping us into the ways of the world. And research shows that the world is shaping believers in lots of, often negative, ways.
Barna released a recent study finding that many believers today have gotten busier and more distracted than ever. Nearly 50 percent of Christians struggle to search out time for community with fellow believers because they are saying they’re too busy. This dynamic is present at a time when 30 percent of US adults report feeling lonely day by day and 20 percent of Christians say the identical.
According to Lifeway, even when an individual spends an hour daily in Bible reading and prayer, they’re likely spending greater than twice that period of time on social media. Some say our increased habits of overconsumption are causing a growing mental illness epidemic amongst teenage girls—not to say increasing polarization and political and racial division. The past few years alone have shown us that our social media usage is impacting us, and never for good.
Rather than equipping us to embody the gospel story day by day, the best way we order our lives can lead us to forget it altogether.
Gospel forgetfulness is just not a recent problem. Whether it was the nation of Israel throughout the time of the judges or Galatian believers in the times of Paul, God’s people have all the time struggled to recollect their embeddedness in God’s world. Which is why, as we see within the Old Testament, God orders Israel’s life around specific festivals and feasts. This can also be why, within the New Testament, Jesus commands his followers to watch sacraments like Communion and baptism.
Such spiritual habits are supposed to remind us of our covenant relationship with God and our responsibility to one another because the body of Christ. And the church calendar—which orders our yr across the Bible—is a vital way Christians can practice these spiritual habits and resist the formational current of our culture.
Sadly, the story told by the calendars of many Christians today align way more with the world than with the gospel. The story of the world is centered around radical individualism and self-redemption. As the fundamental characters of this story, we’re on a journey to search out freedom, authenticity, and happiness. This pursuit of flourishing is usually materialized through the need to search out and maximize our true selves, which leads us to prioritize selfishness and self-sovereignty. This narrative, in turn, can ultimately lead us to embrace our sin and reject God.
The story of the gospel is drastically different. God is the fundamental character, not us—and on our journey, we realize that as his creation, our desire for flourishing can only be met through our relationship with him. But this relationship requires we give up our desires, submitting everything of our lives to his authority. Ultimately, this act of religion connects us with our true selves as divine image-bearers, and our story ends in receiving abundant and everlasting life with God.
Each yr, as we recount the small print of Jesus’ life on earth, this remembrance is just not merely mental but a completely embodied exercise that changes the best way we live. Through Christ, we’re God’s covenant people, and this reality shapes our perspective of the past, present, and future.
While there’s a diversity of views in regards to the church calendar, I even have found Robert Webber’s framework helpful, as he separates the Christian yr into two fundamental sections: what he calls “the cycle of sunshine” and “the cycle of life.”
The cycle of sunshine highlights the incarnation of Jesus and encompasses the experiences of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, while the cycle of life is commemorated through the seasons of Lent, Holy Week, Easter, and Pentecost. The first cycle celebrates the approaching of Jesus and the second speaks to the aim for which he got here—his self-giving sacrifice to free the world from Satan, sin, and death, and to secure forgiveness, healing, and life for all its peoples.
To quote Webber, the usage of this cycle framework helps illustrate how “the church is named to proclaim continually and act out this central mystery of God’s reconciling work in Jesus Christ because it journeys through time from yr to yr, month to month, each day, and hour to hour.” By remembering the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus year-round, we in turn are led to reply by living in light of our own baptism in Christ.
Rather than revolving our lives around entertainment, personal aspirations, or our youngsters’s school activities, we are able to stay in sync with the rhythms of dying to sin and being raised to recent life in Christ. Whether this reflection happens day by day or weekly on Sunday, it should confront us with the everlasting and overflowing love and style of God and concurrently force us to wrestle with the ways through which we have now change into too comfortable with the sin Christ died to avoid wasting us from.
Moreover, commonly rehearsing the biblical story of redemption and restoration shines a lightweight on how we use our resources and look after our neighbors. This light leaves no shadowy corners for complacency or passivity in how we use our money and time or reply to the mistreatment of other image-bearers. Instead, it produces a flourishing spirituality that’s rooted in God.
This cyclical rehearsal of the gospel message also provides a counternarrative to the story of the world. Far too often, we Christians are drawn in by its allure and tempted to live by our own power, seeing the top goal of our faith as our personal happiness. But celebrating holy days in our church can equip us to withstand the tempting pull of our culture.
For instance, Pentecost Sunday—which will probably be celebrated soon in May—reminds us the way it is just through the gift of the Holy Spirit that we have now been empowered to live in God’s world and experience the abundant life Christ got here to offer us. This power is made manifest through his work of sanctification and thru the spiritual gifts he gives. So relatively than in search of human omnipotence, we’re led to embrace a weakness that highlights the ability of God.
This special occasion also refocuses us on the company nature of our faith. We haven’t only been saved into a person relationship with God but additionally into a worldwide church community that features the complete body of Christ from ages past. God established the church as a necessary and non-negotiable a part of his plan for redemption. Pentecost helps us reaffirm our commitment to it and realign our life goals to the proclamation of the gospel and the restoration of the world—all to the glory of God.
This yr, on the Monday after Easter, I encourage you to proceed integrating the traditional Christian calendar into your personal life and the lifetime of your church. Find tangible ways to maintain aligning yourselves to the lifetime of Jesus—whether that be through prayers, songs, or Bible readings.
Even though certain facets of tradition can hinder our relationship with God, the church calendar is a long-standing Christian tradition that’s price embracing all yr round.
Elizabeth Woodson is a author, Bible teacher, host of the Starting Place podcast, and founding father of The Woodson Institute. She is the writer of Embrace Your Life and From Beginning to Forever: A Study of the Grand Narrative of Scripture.
