For: The Institute Of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt.
Growing up in a large liturgical church, in a large city, in a family serving as faithful church members taught me many things. Serving the local body was evident in my parents’ actions as they were involved on committees, the church council, women’s and men’s serving groups, and my mother as church secretary. My siblings and I were in Sunday school every week, sang in the children’s choir and attended confirmation classes to their completion. Yet, I never recall being taught what the liturgical calendar was about. Not that I wasn’t taught about it, I just don’t recall being taught.
Advent meant Christmas was only 4 Sundays away. Lent meant mid-week services, which we never had other times of the year, and plays about characters from the Bible or movies about Jesus, which were pretty cool for a youngster who was more visual in his learning style than auditory. The colors of church decorations and the pastor’s robe decorations changed occasionally, but I did not know what they meant or why they were used. Each Sunday, we heard Scriptures from the Old Testament and New Testament, but I had no clue why those Scriptures were chosen, nor who made the decision to use them on that Sunday.
I have been a member of the congregation, for which I now serve as worship pastor, for 20 years. In my time here, I cannot recall any reference to the liturgical season of the year in our worship services. Nothing is said of Advent, Lent, or Epiphany. Pentecost is welcomed, not as a season of the year, but as a major empowering event in the life of the New Testament church. But in the past few years, I’ve begun to wonder what we as a church could learn from the liturgical calendar in our worship services.
The seasons seem to remind of us of who Christ is, why He came, how He loved, how He suffered and died, how He arose and is alive today, and how He challenged and empowered His church to spread the Good News of the Gospel to all nations. He did it to restore all to Him; to bring about His Kingdom as it was intended. Our worship can relate that message whether we follow the liturgical calendar or present our corporate worship in a seemingly less formal way.
Fred, it’s amazing isn’t it, how the liturgical seasons can seemingly be so invisible in our expression at times.
I wonder if we’re disconnected to the meaning and we need to find places of connection again.
I hope that you’ll continue to post your thoughts, after the course, so that we can keep tracking with your ‘wonderings’ in the different seasons!
Comment by Di — July 11, 2008 @ 2:24 am
I can relate to your questions about the liturgical calendar. There is something important about seasons (Ecclesiastes 3) that I know I could emphasize more in my worship leading. I hope that you’ll pursue this question of how the calendar could integrate into what you’re doing now (as will I).
Comment by Will Bernard — July 18, 2008 @ 9:02 am