Sacred Roots Workshop

Ses s i on 8: Reborn to Ser ve

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the whole sweep of Scripture and is enabled to hope for a real future in light of God’s promises.

~ Doug E. Sailers. “The Origins of the Church Year.” Robert Webber., ed. The Services of the Church Year . Nashville: Star Song Pub. Group. p. 92.

Every culture, every religious tradition has its cycle of seasons, holy days (or holidays), and occasions of special commemoration. We know the earth's seasons of winter, spring, summer, and fall. In the United States, for example, people celebrate national holidays such as Independence Day and Memorial Day. The calendar of the Christian year marks the occasions that have to do with the life of Jesus: his conception, birth, baptism, teaching, ministry, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension. Someone has said that the church year “is the life of Christ lived out again in liturgical time – in the time and in the memory of his Church.”

~ Vicki K. Black. Welcome to the Church Year. Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 2004, pp. 2-3.

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II. The Display of God’s Rule Here and Now: Church as Servant and Witness

Polycarp also was instructed by apostles, and he spoke with many who had seen Christ. Not only that, but by apostles, in Asia he was appointed bishop of the church in Smyrna. I also saw him in my early youth, for he lived a very long time. When he was a very old man, he gloriously and most nobly suffered martyrdom and departed this life. He had always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles, and which the church has handed down, and which alone are true. ~ Irenaeus, c. 180. Cf. David W. Bercot, ed. A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs . Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1998. p. 648.

A. As locus and agent of the rule of God, we give witness to the Kingdom in works and witness ( martyria ).

1. We are a community that gives tangible and credible witness to the presence and offer of Kingdom salvation through our words and works.