Life is incredibly seasonal. In the last few weeks, with the turn of weather, it marks a change of clothing and habits. Days are cooler and shorter. There’s something wonderful about seasons that reminds us of the Lord’s provision and how dependent we are on him as creatures.
Yet as Christians, it’s easy for us to approach seasons passively. Life can easily happen to us. But as we all know, discipline is key to living a deliberate, intentional life, even amidst various seasons.
One of the historic ways that the church has approached life purposefully was to follow a church calendar. This marked specific seasons of the Christian life that helped people to be more deliberate in their spiritual reflection. This feels foreign to many of us today, but it may be a practice worth reviving. In this episode of the CCL podcast with Mark Earngey, we explore how tradition and the church calendar can aid us in the Christian life.
Links referred to:
- Upcoming events:
- “The glory of true humility” (academic lecture) with David VanDrunen (Wed 7 June 5:00pm)
- “Virtue in an age of virtue signalling: Christian character in a characterless society” with David VanDrunen (Wed 7 June 7:30pm)
- Support the work of the Centre
- Contact the Centre about your ethical questions
Runtime: 31:52 min.
Transcript
Please note: This transcript has been edited for readability.
Introduction
Chase Kuhn: Life is incredibly seasonal. In the last few weeks, I’ve enjoyed the turn of weather. It marks a change of clothing and habits. Days are cooler and shorter. There’s something wonderful about seasons that reminds us of the Lord’s provision and how dependent we are on him as creatures.
Yet as Christians, it’s easy for us to approach seasons passively. Life can easily happen to us. But as we all know, discipline is key to living a deliberate, intentional life, even amidst various seasons.
One of the historic ways that the church has approached life purposefully was to follow a church calendar. This marked specific seasons of the Christian life that helped people to be more deliberate in their spiritual reflection. This feels foreign to many of us today, but it may be a practice worth reviving. Today on the podcast, we explore how tradition and the church calendar can aid us in the Christian life.
[Music]
CK: Hello and welcome to the Centre for Christian Living podcast. My name is Chase Kuhn. I’m coming to you from Moore College in Sydney, Australia. Today, I have my good mate Mark Earngey on with me. Mark is the Head of Church History here at Moore College and my neighbour. Mark, good to see you, mate.
Mark Earngey: Great to see you, Chase! It’s been so long. [Laughter] I love it!
CK: Mark and I literally live across a field from one another, and our offices are two doors apart. It’s great to be sitting here with you, Mark, and I’m really glad to be talking to you today about church history.
ME: My favourite!
CK: I know it is. I want to talk about how history impacts us in our Christian living—that is, as we think about ethics today and the practice of the Christian life, why in the world would things past matter for the present? That’s the essence of it: we’re going to zero onto tradition.
The what and why of the church calendar
CK: We’re just coming out of the Lenten season, the season leading up into Easter. Some will know what that season is; some won’t. It’s part of an annual cycle of seasons that have marked out the church calendar for a very long time. First of all, what is a church calendar, how does it work and what’s it for?
ME: Great question, Chase! Great to be podcast. I love this podcast. I’m a devotee: I listen to it in my car and it’s on my Google podcast list, as I’m sure it is for many of your listeners.
Church calendars: well, we know what the church is and we know what calendars are. We’re used to rhythms and various kinds of calendars—Hallmark calendars and annual things we mark and celebrate, like birthdays and anniversaries. Some things in life we can forget at minimal consequence—for example, if you forget to brush your teeth. But others things, if you forget, there can be significant consequences. For example, your wedding anniversary: you don’t want to forget that one or you could be up the creek! That’s something significant for us as human beings: we work on these annual systems for things.
The church calendar taps into a bit of that. But it also comes from a place of looking at the way God has spoken to his people throughout the ages to remember things—often remembering things annually. Throughout the Old Testament, there’s lots of annual things and practices—days that are set apart. Also, more than annually, there are times that are set apart and demarcated—you might even say “consecrated” as holy or set apart, which is what that term is getting at.
God calls his people to remember things. Jesus tells us to do things in remembrance of him. In 2 Peter 1:12, there’s a great verse: “So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have” (NIV). He’s just been talking about the eternal kingdom of our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ, but he still seeks to remind them, even though they know these things. So there’s something about a biblical practice of being reminded about the things of God and salvation in Jesus, even though you might know them. We’re forgetful people, so we’re told, “Remember, remember, remember.”
Why am I saying all this? The church calendar is something that came out of the wisdom of people who have come before us thinking, “How do we help people remember the gospel of Jesus?” You don’t want to forget that; that’s going to have consequences. It’s not like forgetting to brush your teeth! Christians before us asked, “What are ways that we can think about times to set apart and stitch into the fabric of things to help us remember?”
The church calendar was a big piece of that. It’s not the only thing; regular teaching is still there. But it was a big piece of life—the warp and woof of life. Wouldn’t it be great to stitch into the patterns of all of our lives ways of remembering? Whether you’re old or young, black or white, speaking different languages or possessing different educational abilities, work out ways of helping Christians remember the things that they already know.
CK: Yeah, that’s very, very helpful. It’s fascinating the ways that our minds work differently, isn’t it. Visual reminders—tangible reminders—are things that can stir up our memory, which is what Peter goes on to say: he wants to “stir you up by way of reminder” (2 Pet 1:13 ESV). He’s trying to work into them that memory of particular ways of being as gospel people, in anticipation of the kingdom. Each of these occurrences are ways of us remembering that message.
For example, you think back to the Passover in the Old Testament: you mentioned this particular feast—this festival that was remembered every year; here’s an early gospel, if you will. Here is God’s redemption of his people, marking them out as his people (Exod 12:1-28): “Every year, take this meal a certain way. Meet together as my people this way. Tell the story again a certain way so that you don’t forget.”
ME: Totally. Practices! I often think about the Feast of Booths (Lev 23:33-44): make this little arbour. Make a cubby house! Use your hands: make this thing! There’s something about practices that you can inhabit.
I think that’s part of being human, really: you’re tradition creatures. You’re creatures of habit, and habits are important. Sometimes we speak about them as “disciplines”. But I feel like these things are important just by virtue of being human.
CK: Yeah, absolutely.
Significant events in the church calendar
CK: Just to take it out of the spiritual realm for a moment and into everyday life, we love big breakfasts as a family. On the weekends, we’ll take a day—usually Saturday mornings—and our family has a big breakfast together. It doesn’t do anything other than mark out that family is important. We remember as we sit at the table to love each other, to serve each other, to enjoy each other’s company. Sometimes it’s more challenging than others: it’s hard to serve, hard to love, hard to enjoy. But it’s really good, and it marks out a particular time and makes it a priority for us.
Tell us about the ways that the spiritual family, then, marks out significant events in the Christian calendar. What are the highlights? We can go into a lot of detail about a lot of days.
ME: Don’t start me, Chase! Don’t start me. [Laughter]
CK: I know, mate, I’ve been there before. [Laughter] I’ve wasted a few afternoons doing that, mate! [Laughter] Jokes. Let’s talk about one: Advent, for example. Advent’s an important time of expectation.
ME: Yep. Just like we’ve got seasons—summer, winter, August—what’s it called? Autumn. Spring. Fall, if you’re in another part of the world. I don’t know what “Fall” is.
CK: It’s when the leaves fall, mate.
ME: Yeah, thanks, mate, that’s very good. Yes, leaves falling. Anyway, okay. We’re used to seasons. That’s just part of the cycles built into the natural order of things. So the church calendar, in different parts of the world, was geared to the natural seasons. They’d time things in similar ways. But it’s not like that everywhere.
One of the principles that is in the church calendar is this idea of seasons: annual cycles and seasons. Over time, the church calendar has been set up in different places and with different variations, but in the guts—the core—of it, there are these things called “seasons” in the Christian year.
Those seasons start with Advent, which kicks off—we might think of it as in December, but technically, it’s just before that. It’s a certain amount of time away from Christmas. You might go through Advent, which is a Latin word: “adventus” from the First Coming, thinking about the Second Coming of Christ. Then you move to Christmas, which is a season, thus the [Sings] “12 Days of Christmas my true love said to me”. That’s not a day (although it is a day); it’s actually a season.
Then you move forward to Epiphany, which thinks about the appearance of Jesus—the arrival of Jesus—and you think about his life, what he did, the miracles and the followers that came after him.
And then you move towards a period called Lent, which some of us will be familiar with. It’s the season we’re travelling through at the moment. That’s a 40-day period leading up into Easter. Then you’ve got the Easter season—Eastertide. You remember other events after Easter, of course, when Jesus came back from the dead: Good Friday and Easter Day.
Then you’ve got the Ascension and then Pentecost. You move through to Trinity Sunday. Then you’ve got this season called “Ordinary Time”, which is really nice, because it’s reflecting on the ordinary nature of the Christian life. And then you kick it off again when you get back around to Advent.
That’s the basic guts of the Christian calendar. You observe a focus on Jesus, which is the way it should be. You have a focus on Jesus and his significance, retelling the gospel: the coming of Jesus, the life of Jesus, the saving incarnation—the saving life, the saving death, the saving resurrection, the saving ascension, the saving giving of his Spirit. I can’t think of a better way to stitch—
CK: It’s beautiful.
ME: What a cool thing that the church has thought in its wisdom: “Let’s stitch into the life of our churches remembering the things you already know—the saving work of Jesus in this way.”
Different Christians approach all of that in different practices in different kinds of churches in different places around the world. In African countries, it might be a bit different from Sydney. But that’s the guts of it, and however you cash that out, it’s worth just remembering that the guts of it is like the passage in 2 Peter: you’re remembering the things you already knew and were established in. In a way, we might use the word “catechesis”—a kind of teaching piece, a habit-forming teaching piece. That is cool.
CK: I love that. The times I think I don’t need it are probably when I need it most. [Laughter] I end up thinking, “Yeah, I’ve got this. I’ve figured this out” and I end up losing proper reflection on the significance of something. So let’s talk about this.
Responding to the seasons
CK: There’s multiple dimensions of each season. That is, there is the opportunity to think directly—that is, theologically—on what Jesus has done for us. But there’s also the response that’s appropriate to what Jesus has done. So in Advent, for example, the anticipation is something that is actually a spiritual discipline. How do you anticipate the Christ properly? How do you long for him? How do you confess your need for him? The Lenten season is a season of preparation—not to try to make ourselves acceptable to God, but in view of what Jesus’ coming to pay for our sin, to rid ourselves of sin that remains.
ME: Yeah, in lots of ways, it’s a beautifully Reformed season. Reformed theology prizes reflection on the seriousness of sin and the absolute beauty of salvation in Jesus. I think that Lent, beginning with what’s traditionally known as Ash Wednesday (the Reformed churches don’t generally do the ashing; that’s a 19th-century innovation), it’s a reflection on—actually, in Cranmer’s day, in the Anglican tradition, it’s a combination on sin: it’s got this really heavy reflection on the doctrine of sin, and God’s wrath and the punishment we all deserve at the start of Lent so that during that period of 40 days leading up into Easter, you can meditate on your sinful nature. That’s not fun, but it’s good in the sense that you realise that you’re a sinner who clings to Jesus.
So personally, the more I’ve lent into this—ha! Get that? Lent?
CK: That’s great. [Laughter]
ME: I didn’t even intend—anyway. The more I’ve lent into this, the more I’ve appreciated coming to Good Friday and seeing that it was my sins that held him there, and coming to Easter Day and thinking, “Risen with healing in his wings” (Mal 4:2). I’ve personally found that spiritually beneficial because I think I’ve approached it with a Reformed, biblical perspective on theological perspectives.
CK: It’s beautiful. It’s not navel-gazing, then. In other words, you’re not down, looking into your own soul, trying to find your own remedy. When you think about the 40 days of preparation, you’re thinking about Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness (Mark 1:12-13) and his overcoming of temptation on our behalf. Then reflecting on your own propensity towards giving into temptation, you can call out with Paul at the end of Romans 7, “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom 7:24 ESV)
ME: Totally. “O wretched man that I am” (Rom 7:24 KJV). That’s right.
CK: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom 7:25a ESV).
ME: Totally.
CK: We are actually liberated by what Christ has offered for us, and now live in his new life. Praise be to God!
ME: Yes. It’s a good example in thinking about Lent. I like to think of these kinds of pieces in the Christian calendar as being like, in the wisdom of the church, it has set up these markers and buried them like little time capsules. As you go through the Christian year, it’s like you’re digging up a little time capsule of truth—gospel truth—and you’re getting excited, remembering what you already knew.
CK: It’s rich.
ME: You’re saying, “Planting these little time capsules throughout the Christian year that I can retrieve and go, ‘Oh! Thank you. This is a good word—a good gospel word.’”
CK: That’s rich.
[Music]
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CK: As we take a break from our program, I’d like to bring to your attention a few bits of news from the Centre for Christian Living. First, we’re starting a new initiative in our podcast where we want to hear from and interact with listeners like you. Many of you have burning ethical questions or scenarios you’d like advice about. We’d love to hear from you! Send us your issues and listen out for an answer in our upcoming episodes, where we’ll begin to feature a short segment on your ethical challenges. You can send them to us through our contact page on our website.
Second, I want to invite you to some very special events in June. As we continue through this year’s series on “A virtuous life”, we’re privileged to have an international guest speaker for our June events. Professor David VanDrunen of Westminster Seminary in California will speak at two events in one evening. On the evening of 7 June, we’ll begin from 5-6 pm with a public lecture on “The glory of true humility”. Then after a dinner break (when in-person guests are welcome to roam King St for some delicious eats), we’ll come back for our CCL series event from 7:30-9:00 pm on the topic of “Virtue in an age of virtue signalling”.
I really hope you’ll prioritise joining us in person or on the live stream. As a reminder, we host these events on Wednesday nights so that church Bible Study groups can participate together. We’d love to have you or your whole group join us. The events continue to be by donation, so come whether you can give or not. All the details can be found under the events tab on our website: ccl.moore.edu.au.
Now let’s get back to our program.
Objections to the church calendar: we should remember every day
CK: Let me ask you some questions for those who might be sceptical of the goodness of these things. What makes this season different from any other? Shouldn’t we be reflecting on these things every day of the year?
ME: Yeah. There was a time when there were some Reformed and evangelical Christians in England in the late 16th/early 17thcentury who really believed strongly that, no, these are all gospel truths that we should remember every day of the year, and therefore, we should not mark out specific days for anything. They were keen to abolish Christmas and Easter because of consistency with that particular belief.
There’s a consistency there that’s admirable and a principle that’s right: we can remember these things every day of the year. That’s awesome and we should. But we don’t remember everything all the time every day in the same way. I don’t think I operate like that.
CK: That’s because we’re finite.
ME: Do you operate like that?
CK: No. I’m finite. [Laughter]
ME: I’m finite too. That’s right. I need habits. I need rhythms. I think that’s just a creaturely thing.
The church calendar is a wisdom piece. It’s not a “law of the Persians and Medes” kind of thing (Dan 6:8). It’s a wisdom piece. It’s like the church, in its wisdom, has said, “Here’s a best practice piece of wisdom.” It’s not like there’s an extra book of the Bible that says, “Thou must do this.” But over time, people have thought, “This is helpful. This is a helpful practice.” So I think it’s a good way.
In my own life, through various churches, I’ve come out of a place where these things weren’t a significant part of piety. I know people who have come from churches where this has always been a significant part of piety. So I’m really conscious that with people, where you’ve come from shapes you.
That sort of proves the point: where you’ve come from shapes you, and you’re tradition creatures. But it’s always good to revisit your little habits and practices, and think, “Could there be another really helpful habit and practice that I can take on for my sanctification, that I might remember these things that I already know and have been established in?”
Objections to the church calendar: It’s not a genuine expression of faith
CK: With tradition, there’s another objection I’ve often heard: when we make something tradition, it loses its authenticity. It’s not an actual genuine expression, then, of my faith; it’s more coerced from me, because it’s a repetition—it’s something I must do. Some people would say this in taking the Lord’s Supper too frequently. But the same thing could be that I just do this because it’s going through the motions. How do you help people think about that?
ME: Oh, many things could be said! There’s a great quote from Jaroslav Pelikan, the great historical theologian and collector of creeds: he once said that “Tradition is the living faith of the dead, [whereas] traditionalism is the dead faith of the living”.1
CK: It’s a great quote.
ME: He goes on: “I suppose I should add, it is traditionalism that gives tradition such a bad name”.2 [Laughter]
I think what he’s getting at there is that you can do anything in a dry, rote, inauthentic fashion. You could sing lots of modern, contemporary songs that someone else has written not from the heart. You could stand up and you could give a formal liturgy not from the heart. Actually, whether it’s contemporary songs that you’re just going through the motions with, or it’s a formal service that you’re going through the motions with, that could be a form of traditionalism.
But tradition is genuine, faith-inspired, from-the-heart religion that’s issuing in heartfelt prayers, heartfelt praise, heartfelt practices. So I think that’s a helpful way of thinking about traditions as a bit of a category—that actually what matters is doing things from the heart when you’re putting stuff into practice.
However, tradition is a category, as well. GK Chesterton once called it the “democracy of the dead”.3 There’s a sense in which we believe we’re surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses (Heb 12:1); we believe that we’re part of the communion of the saints; we believe that the church exists beyond us, it existed before us and it will keep going after us. We stand on the shoulders of giants. There are people who have come before us; we’re not the first people to read the Bible. We’re not the smartest people to read the Bible. So tradition places you and gives you a humility, I think—a dependence. It’s not an independent, arrogant attitude, but a dependent, humble attitude that makes you see yourself as part of a greater whole that you can learn from.
CK: I find that liberating. I think I’ve seen this, as well, among even some young folks who are—I’m saying this as if there’s lots of youngsters running around; you and I not so old ourselves.
ME: Certainly not!
CK: But there are plenty of people younger than us these days.
ME: There’s a few.
CK: I think there is this desire to tap into something bigger than themselves. People feel lost in themselves and, I guess, one of the great things about belonging to the great tradition is that I am joining something that has really predated me, and I get to be involved in it, by the grace of God. I can even mouth words that people have said long before me and will say after me—words of truth that will continue to ring out through history, testifying to the goodness of God. I love that.
Cultivating tradition, not traditionalism
CK: Back to your point: the distinction between traditionalism and tradition is so helpful. I guess maybe traditionalism could be equated with something like a Pharisaical religion. Is that correct? It’s the showing and going through the motions in a way that is really detached from that real, spiritual vigour. I wonder how you cultivate tradition over against traditionalism. How do you participate in the tradition without traditionalism?
ME: Yeah, that’s good. The heart of the answer is really faith—true and lively faith—which, of course, recognises that there’s Christians who have come before you and there will be Christians who will come afterwards. So the traditions we inhabit aren’t static things; they’re dynamic things that will grow and continue into the future.
Sometimes our relationship to tradition can be a bit like a child growing up to a parent. When you’re growing up, you get to a point when you realise your parents aren’t omniscient and they don’t get everything right. But there’s a lot of wisdom there that you ought to benefit from and live on with into the future. I think it’s a maturity thing to recognise tradition’s role as not being infallible, but full of good wisdom.
CK: That’s good. We all go through a little bit of a season, though, don’t we. You see your parents and you think, “Yeah, they’re not so cool anymore. I’ll do my own thing for a while.”
ME: Yeah. That’s good.
CK: But then suddenly you tap into realising, “Wait, I should have listened to them. They were trying to tell me. Maybe they did know better after all.”
ME: “They had a few runs on the board.” [Laughter]
CK: “I didn’t want to believe it, but it was actually true.” [Laughter] That’s right.
ME: Yeah. We often see that, don’t we. When we teach at Moore College, we teach students, and as we teach and induct students into what people have reflected on the Scriptures in the past, there’s these lightbulb moments when people think, “Wow! God has spoken and I can learn from people who’ve read the Bible before me.” I think that’s a maturity piece.
CK: It is.
ME: It’s beautiful to see. We all have to keep that attitude, I think, going forward.
CK: I agree.
ME: Now, tradition is not infallible. That’s the other thing. The moment you start to say, “Tradition’s infallible” is the moment you start to hit the traditionalism button. But we must remember traditions—practices, theological traditions, confessional stuff—they’re norms, but the norming norm is the Bible.
CK: That’s helpful.
ME: It’s the Scriptures.
CK: Yeah, and in each season, if you embrace a tradition, the best thing the season is doing, if it’s functioning well, is driving you back into the Scriptures to think about Jesus. That’s what the seasons are designed to do. Like good liturgy is designed to do.
Why use liturgy?
CK: So you’re a man who loves his liturgy. I love my liturgy as well.
ME: Absolutely. Don’t we all?
CK: In a large part, thanks to your influence. I love you for it, Mark. [Laughter] But we all have a liturgy, don’t we. We can think that we can get away from something formal—that is, something pre-scripted for us; something that was scripted ahead of time by somebody else. I suspect that a lot of people’s avoidance of that is that it’s not immediately accessible in the way they would like it to be in that it requires a little bit more engagement and reflection on the words that are so intentional, that they can feel a bit difficult to comprehend immediately or articulate from a position of faith.
But if we dwell on them long enough—if we think them through, maybe, in advance or through repetition—that is, through saying a liturgy regularly—we actually begin to cultivate those words in ways that are deeply meaningful and almost they’re lifting their faith higher than it was before. What I mean by that is it’s giving me better words than I could have otherwise articulated to God.
I’m getting excited here.
ME: That’s good!
CK: But I just want to know, Mark, for those who have avoided the formality of a church calendar and liturgies that would be associated with a calendar like that, how do you encourage them not to flee in the other direction as if something more holy is happening? It may be, perhaps; it may be not. But we all have a liturgy, right?
ME: Yeah. The word “liturgy” is a bit of an evangelical dinner party conversation killer. Let’s be honest. [Laughter]
CK: Do you go to evangelical dinner parties? [Laughter]
ME: If you came around to my place, we’d have a great old yarn. [Laughter]
CK: That’s right.
ME: And should most people! But the word “liturgy” can be used in various ways. The way in which I use it now is just synonymous with “church service”. We’ve all got a liturgy. Every church has a liturgy that we use on Sundays. It’s just a question of whether it’s a good one or not.
We’ve all got a liturgy. Whatever you do in your church—whatever order of service you have—that’s your liturgy. Whether you like it or not, it is. Whether you call it a liturgy is slightly beside the point; it’s a liturgical thing. So if you went to a Pentecostal church, you’ve got a liturgy there: you’ve got a bunch of songs; you might have a little short spot on giving (I’m thinking about a particular church; it might not be like this at all); you might have another song; you might have a Bible reading, a long sermon, an altar call and some more songs. That might be a liturgy at a Pentecostal church.
You might have a liturgy at a formal, traditional, classic Anglican church and that might have four readings of Scripture; you might have the Lord’s Supper; you might have a sermon; you might have a couple of old hymns; you might have a confession, an absolution, a creed, the Lord’s Prayer. I know which one I’d prefer. But every church has a liturgy.
You might go to a so-called pretty “informal” service: you might have some songs, you might have a welcome, a few meteorological comments at the start, some songs. You might have a Bible reading, or two if you’re lucky. You might have a sermon. You might have some songs at the end. That’s your liturgy. So we’ve all got them.
Objections to liturgy
ME: I think it’s important and helpful to say—and I suppose I alluded to this before—it’s not the form of the thing that makes for authenticity; it’s the heart of the thing. It’s the heart of the person leading, the heart of the congregation members as they participate in that church service. It’s the heart of the matter. It’s the faith of the participants that makes the thing authentic or non-authentic. It’s not whether words are prewritten or not. You can have an extemporary kind of service and that can be just as inauthentic as a formal service, if it’s not done from the heart. All we’ve got to do is look to some of the big megachurch stuff that’s going on recently to look at the disconnect between true faith and piety, and practice.
The other piece I want to say is sometimes people say, “Prewritten words lack authenticity.” I want to say, again, no: it’s a heart matter, not a form matter. To make the point a little bit sharper, what we do with all the songs in our churches? They’re prewritten. You don’t come to church on Sunday and say to everyone, “Okay, just sing whatever you like from the heart, please.” You come and there’s a set of words that someone else has written—probably from a few hundred years ago. Some of the language of those words might be a little bit foreign too, like “Be thou my vision”. We might be really familiar with that beautiful old hymn. But if you’ve come from a background or from another country, or maybe you’re exploring the faith, and someone says, “Let’s stand for ‘Be thou my vision’”, you’ll think, “Well, what’s a ‘thou’? And what’s all this about?” We just have to remember it’s about approaching the form from the heart.
CK: I love that! Let’s be honest: when we turn up to worship, we’re going there with an intention. We had a quote in chapel recently from our dear sister Jane Tooher, who said, “The mature are easily edified.”
ME: Mmm, that was good!
CK: The point is, if you come there mature in faith, from the heart, you should be able to really be edified quite readily—quite easily. I think liturgy is meant to be a vehicle for that.
With that, I just want to say, we all have a liturgy, and even though we may not have a formal service, we will do something. The question is how thoughtful will it be? Same thing about a calendar: we may not follow a church calendar, but we’re all going to fill our time. The question is, “How?” What are we going to think about? How are we going to be thinking deliberately about Jesus? The question is, will a church calendar help us be more intentional?
ME: Agreed.
Conclusion
CK: Mark, I’m so grateful for the time today, mate. I’m really glad to see you again and glad to have you back on the podcast. Thank you so much for your time!
ME: My pleasure, Chase. Always a joy!
[Music]
CK: To benefit from more resources from the Centre for Christian Living, please visit ccl.moore.edu.au, where you’ll find a host of resources, including past podcast episodes, videos from our live events and articles published through the Centre. We’d love for you to subscribe to our podcast and for you to leave us a review so more people can discover our resources.
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As always, I would like to thank Moore College for its support of the Centre for Christian Living, and to thank to my assistant, Karen Beilharz, for her work in editing and transcribing the episodes. The music for our podcast was generously provided by James West.
[Music]
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Scripture quotations marked (ESV) are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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Endnotes
1 Jaroslav Pelikan, The Vindication of Tradition. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1984), 65.
2 Ibid.
3 GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy. (New York and London: John Lane, 1908) 85.
