Church Matters: Retrieving the Great Tradition

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Chur ch Mat ter s : Ret r i ev i ng the Great Trad i t i on

A Baptist Preacher Discovered the Christian Year, continued

Walking through each of these main events in the experience of Jesus provides an endless list of praise themes, sermon topics and texts. There is no difficulty even connecting the Christian year with many topical series of sermons.

Worship Deepened Initially, this change from the previous ritual of three hymns, offering, special music, and sermon to themes from the Christian year met with some resistance. However, such resistance was generally from those who had strong resistances to many types of changes, rather than from those who had previously chosen to leave a liturgical environment. The former Catholics, Lutherans, and Episcopalians who have become a part of our congregation have in many cases experienced new meaning in their worship life by bringing their evangelical faith to observance of the Christian year. Those who have their first taste of the Christian year in our congregation often find a sense of stability and continuity in their Christian faith and worship. Our structure of prayers, confessions, singing (even chanting) of the Psalms, connected by the focus of the Christian year gives just enough structure to our worship to enable each person to offer praise and adoration to our Lord. This pattern provides opportunity for pastoral guidance toward effective worship not afforded by the traditional preaching service. We believe God has richly blessed us in our discovery of the Christian year.