The Church Calendar for Evangelicals: Why It Matters

Writing, I have discovered, is one of my more helpful spiritual disciplines. It helps me to think and to meditate on the Word. I have also discovered that it is one of the most difficult disciplines for me to maintain when my schedule is busy (You can pretty well gauge which periods have been the least busy for me by when I have posted on here the most). Today, however, I was struck by inspiration, on which I hope to follow through: this year I would like to do a series of posts following the church calendar.

Now, most of you reading this are Evangelicals, which means you probably don’t know much about the church calendar—it’s a tradition followed mostly by Catholics and Mainline Protestants. You’re probably aware of seasons like Advent and Lent, and you’re probably aware that Christmas has twelve days (If only because of the song). I only know of the church calendar because of my time at seminary. While I was there, however, I discovered that this calendar is a powerful devotional tool—through it, we follow the life of Christ every year, and the seasons of Advent and Lent help to make Christmas and Easter that much more significant. More than that, however, learning the church calendar taught me the importance of how we structure our time, and that is something I very much want to share.

You see, the modern person in the first world has many forces that claim their time, and those forces tend to shape how we structure our lives. For students, their lives revolve around the academic calendar—ask them what time of year it is, they might tell you that it’s finals week (Or you may be able to tell by the bags under their eyes). For me, my time used to be very much structured by the shopping calendar. When I thought of the Christmas season, I thought of long shifts and hordes of angry shoppers, rather than the season when we reflect on the coming of Christ. There are a lot of other calendars that pull on us—the financial calendar, sports seasons, television seasons. You can tell a lot about your own priorities by thinking about which calendar structures your life. For a long time I allowed my classes and my job structure my time, which made it that much more difficult to give God the level of focus he deserves. When I learned about the church calendar, however, I found something that helped me to structure my life around the Word and works of God rather than the worries and stresses of life.

Take this week, for instance. For most people, this is the first full week of the Christmas season. Why? Because that’s what society tells us. Once Thanksgiving is over, it’s time to start buying things for Christmas. Our sense of time is structured by businesses that want to pressure us into spending money, rather than anything about Christmas itself. In the church calendar, however, this week is actually the last week of the year. Advent—the first season of the church year, and the beginning of the holiday season—begins next Sunday. This week, instead, is the week of Christ the King: the week in which we reflect on the fact that Christ is King over all the earth, over all the nations and business and schools and every other force that tries to claim our lives. We are reminded this week that Jesus Christ is Lord of the Earth right now, that we owe our allegiance to him alone, and that we ought to live our lives in pursuit of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Now, I am not trying to argue that Evangelical churches should start following the church calendar—although I think it could add some depth to our worship. All I want to do here is to show how much of a difference it makes when we structure our time around God rather than the world. To that end, I will be following the church calendar on my blog by posting (hopefully weekly) reflections on each season, usually centered on the scripture reading and/or collect (written prayer) for each week. I hope this exercise is fruitful for whoever out there is reading—I know that writing it will be fruitful for me. Let me close now with a reading and the collect for the week of Christ the King. See you in Advent!

“John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.  Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.’” (Revelation 1:4-8 ESV)

“Almighty and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords: Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.”