An Evangelical Discovers the Liturgical Year
On discovering the beauty, order, and quiet rebellion of the church calendar.
I learned about Christianity in white evangelical circles.
After I said the “Sinner’s Prayer” in high school, my discipleship came from Christian Contemporary Music (CCM), topical self-help sermons, and “seeker sensitive” church growth principles.
I don’t despise my early ecclesiastical experiences. They built the foundation for the the faith I have today.
But there were some gaps in my learning about God and the church.
I never learned about the liturgical calendar, for instance.
In my non-denominational evangelical church, we celebrated Easter and Christmas, and that was about it.
Advent was a word attached to those cardboard calendars with perforated doors hiding bits of chocolate. Lent was mostly a guilt-ridden question: What are you giving up? followed by the annual promise to stop eating sweets.
This lack of emphasis on the liturgical calendar can make evangelical churches feel like a free-for-all.
The calendar can seem haphazard. Disconnected. Adrift.
Even the most intentional communities struggled to find an anchor.
Perhaps that’s why so many evangelicals wander into other traditions—Catholic, Methodist, Episcopalian—seeking something older, steadier, more rooted.
Not only do these and similar traditions offer more structure in the weekly services, they tend to be rooted in the liturgical year.
The liturgical calendar—“different seasons that reflect the life of Jesus Christ and foundational moments in the early Church”—invites us to inhabit time differently.
They connect us to people of faith worldwide who are observing the same religious seasons just as we might experience seasons in nature.
The liturgical calendar means that change is constant, but so is tradition.
The beauty and wisdom of the church calendar is what I’m learning as I read through the new book by Diana Butler Bass, A Beautiful Year: 52 Meditations on Faith, Wisdom, and Perseverance.
The Christian year is a cycle of stories and rituals based on the life and teachings of Jesus. It begins in late November or early December with a season called Advent. Unlike the civil calendar with four seasons, it has six—Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, and Pentecost. The first five seasons happen in quick succession during the first half of the year and relate the story of Jesus; the sixth season occupies the second half of the calendar year and emphasizes what Jesus taught. And so it goes on—year after year—moving from seasons to remember Jesus to the time to learn and practice his teachings.
But in A Beautiful Year, the liturgical calendar is not simply about personal piety. It is a subversive story that undermines empire.
The heroes it honors were mostly idealists, losers, and failures, who often died while pursuing improbable things like hospitality, solidarity, and nonviolence. The Christian year extols empathy, vulnerability, gratitude, and compassion. It praises no nation-state, and it is cosmic in its vision.
Against the story of a Christian America, and amid the bleakness of authoritarianism and Christian nationalism, this story has provided ballast, deepened my sense of identity, and given me hope. I have learned to trust in its wisdom.
As I read Bass’s melodic prose, I feel joined to that great cloud of witnesses who kept time by the church’s seasons. My heart aligns with believers across continents and centuries who live by this sacred rhythm.
I enter into a sacred story that serves as a counter-narrative to the noise of the headlines and the scattered timeline that often characterizes many faith communities.
I still lose track sometimes of where we are—Advent or Epiphany, Lent or Easter—but I’m learning to listen to time differently.
Time tells a story. And when we live within God’s time, every year becomes a beautiful year.
Start your weekly meditations today. Get A Beautiful Year.
I really must stop reading your footnotes- I always end up buying yet another book!
It’s only been in the last 5 plus years that I’ve discovered the gift of following the liturgical year. Thank you for this post and for the book recommendation.