The Church Year for Beginners Like Me

I didn’t grow up knowing about the church year. I was raised in church (and 9 years of private Christian education) and still didn’t know what Advent or Lent was, let alone Ordinary Time or Epiphany. It wasn’t until I started a church internship in college where I learned about the liturgical seasons. I happened to be assigned a preschool Sunday school class where the curriculum was centered on the church calendar. I guess you could say we learned together.

This introduction granted me a different view of church and why some churches worship the way they do. Liturgy was new; this whole sacred time-telling was new. I liked it. It seemed to answer a longing I wasn’t aware of, a longing to be anchored not only to the “great cloud of witnesses” but also to Christian ritual.

Over the years I’ve found that following the story of Christ through the liturgical year, and the lives of the saints who followed in his footsteps, is one way our faith can leap from the pews and into our everyday, ordinary lives.

For better or worse, 2020 disrupted our “normal”. How we usually marked time changed drastically. Days blurred together. Time seemed to slow down and yet, the liturgical calendar carried on behind the noise of the news and isolation. And yet, these ancient rhythms, scriptures, and colors were not hindered by the inevitable disorder of our world, they were an opportunity to notice grace, mystery, and sometimes, hope, in the midst of that disorder.

The pandemic has fueled my desire to be anchored to a deeper, richer set of rhythms in a more consistent manner. And it is here that we continue on into the journey of the church year.

Resources on the Church Year

As I continue learning about the rhythms of the church year, I will update this post with the resources that are the most helpful to me. I encourage you to bookmark this page and visit it occasionally to keep up with my favorites throughout the year.

Here are a few favorites that cover the liturgical year as a whole:

• Three beautiful, printed resources I love to use year after year.
• A short, accessible introduction: Welcome to the Church Year: An Introduction to the Seasons of the Episcopal Church by Vicki Black
• Another easy read with ideas for celebrating: The Circle of Seasons: Finding God in the Church Calendar by Kimberlee Conway Ireton
• An online outline of scripture following the church year, with selected art pieces: The Text This Week
• A well organized online library of art, prayers, and scriptures: Revised Common Lectionary provided by the Vanderbilt Divinity Library
• A simple perpetual liturgical calendar, created by yours truly, to print and display!

If you’d like to follow our celebrations through the church year, check out these posts or subscribe to my monthly newsletter. You may also enjoy these calendar resources.