TITLE: Living the Christian Year: Time to Inhabit the Story of God
AUTHOR: Bobby Gross
AUDIENCE: Communities who wish to have a guide to celebrate the Christian year.
If you have grown up in a non-liturgical style church or a church that has not kept the Christian calendar and you now wish to add that element to your regular worship practices, this is the book for you. I have long heard of celebrating the seasons of Advent and Lent, but thought that they were simply religious man-made traditions of no worth. Raising my children in a culture where the primary seasons of the church (Advent and Lent) are spent indulging on fun and fantasy, I was looking for a wait to make these seasons meaningful and real. The Christian calendar does just that. It brings the story of God’s love and redemption to life and ties it to the cycle of the year that we get to experience over and over.
This book helps you to join the Church, the many congregations who hold to a Christian calendar, in celebrating the events of mankind’s redemptive history as a community. It is perfect for beginners and those (like me) uninitiated to the Christian calendar. We used this during Advent and Lent as a guide for our weekly gatherings with family and friends as we prepare for Christmas and Easter.
Our online Advent and Lent liturgies are partially based on the content in this book.
There are obviously many guides and free content online to help you with this, but Living the Christian Year is probably the most thorough and beginner-friendly resource I have found.
