A New (Old) Way to Tell Time
One of the most common questions when I share that we’re planting an Anglican church in Memphis is: “Angli-what?!” (I’m paraphrasing 🙂).
I’ve shared about how planting churches is THE MOST EFFECTIVE strategy to connect people with Jesus, but I think that planting ANGLICAN churches in particular is especially effective in our current cultural moment.
So look for some posts over the next couple of months sharing more about this rich and beautiful and ancient Christian tradition and why it’s resonating so deeply with our hearts right now.
(If you’re interested in jumping in right now instead of waiting on my emails, I get it! Here’s a good introductory book on the Anglican tradition.)
Anglicanism is the third-largest communion of Christians in the world (behind the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church). Like these other historic Christian traditions, Anglicans retain and value practices from the earliest days of the Church.
One of those ancient practices is an alternative way to tell time.
We humans are time-oriented creatures. We live according to yearly, monthly, and daily rhythms. We mark time with small habits (like coffee in the morning) and big traditions (like birthday parties).
Now that we don’t live in an agrarian society, we don’t feel our time orientation quite as strongly. Our time isn’t as marked by the four seasons as it once was. And technology disrupts our rhythms too — lights allow us to stay awake working late into the night!
But our bodies still crave rhythms. You feel this immediately when you don’t get adequate sleep for a few nights in a row! And our hearts crave times to celebrate and spaces to lament.
Historically, Christians have marked time in a distinct way, inviting followers of Jesus to enter into the story of Jesus in a real, tangible, felt way. This alternative way of telling time gives us a rhythm. It includes celebration and lamentation. It meets these human needs that we all share.
The Church calendar is anchored by two major redemption events: the incarnation and the resurrection. These events are marked by the great feasts of Christmas and Easter. These are indeed true events worth celebrating!
The season preparing for the feast of Christmas is called Advent, which begins the Church year. Advent is a season of longing, anticipation, and preparation, a season when the Church feels her ache for Christ to come.
The season preparing for the feast of Easter is called Lent, a season for prayer, fasting, giving, and confession as we journey with Jesus toward the Cross.
This is the season we’re in right now. It began on Ash Wednesday with a special exhortation:
I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent: by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and alms-giving; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.
(from the Ash Wednesday liturgy in the Book of Common Prayer)
So how are you observing a holy Lent? It’s not too late to begin! Here’s a good book to help you dive into this important season of preparation. We fast now in preparation for the feasting that’s to come in the celebration of the resurrection!
O Lord our God, grant us grace to desire you with our whole heart: that desiring you, we may seek you; and that seeking you, we may find you and that finding you, we may love you; and that loving you, we may hate those sins from which you have delivered us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
