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We discussed Christmas, Epiphany and the Baptism of the Lord (Dec. 25, Sunday before or on Jan. 6, and the following Sunday) in our last class.  There are five other feast days that we observe through the year that relate to, or are dependent on, the date of Christmas.  They are: The Anunciation — March [...]

What about the rest of the week?  In the early church there were daily morning and evening services in the larger cities — generally limited to a cathedral.  These services, which were attended by people going to and coming from their daily occupations, came to be referred to as “Cathedral Prayer”.  In addition to this [...]

The Greek word from which we derive “ecclesiastical” is a combination of two words: “ek”, meaning “out”; and “kaleo”, meaning “to call”.  It originally referred to the assembly of citizens “called out” to govern the city.  This political term was deliberatedly chosen by the early Church to refer to itself — the subject of Christ’s [...]

Christmas doesn’t date back as far as Easter does in the Christian Year.  The Epistles, which are generally viewed as pre-dating other parts of the New Testament, make little mention of the birth of Jesus, but focus instead on the central mystery of our faith — his death and resurrection.  The earliest of the Gospels, [...]

Easter is to the year what the Lord’s Day is to the week.  It is significant that Christ was crucified and rose again at the time of the Jewish celebration of Pascha (Passover).  This was a time when God’s people celebrated deliverance from bondage in Egypt and the early Christians realized that now there was [...]

Christ the King Sunday is approaching.

Any study of Church Time begins with Sunday.  The resurrection is central in the life and faith of the Church, and Sunday is the day on which Christ rose.  Where before the focus was on the end of the week and a day of rest under the old covenant, the new covenant focus is on [...]

What do we mean when we talk about “worship”?  In class today, we talked about worship as praising God, as a time of fellowship and communion, as prayer, as service . . .  Worship is all these things. Martin Luther, in a sermon preached at the dedication of the first church built for Protestant worship [...]

I encourage you to follow the link for worship planning in the Lectionary entry for All Saints Day.  You might also want to visit Upper Room Daily Reflections and read the entry for today as we celebrate our belief in the Communion of the Saints. As Brian indicated in his email to the class earlier [...]