I was brought up in a Baptist church where we celebrated Christmas and Easter. It was not that we were anti celebrations; it was just not part of our church tradition. I have many happy childhood memories of fun times with my family enjoying special times of the year and special family events. For me this is one of the greatest pleasures in parenting – creating a stockpile of great memories for my own kids, just as my parents did for me and my sisters.
As an adult I began to explore the liturgical year in more depth, drawn by my personality type to ritual and rhythm in prayer and worship. I began celebrating Advent while lodging with a friend who also enjoyed creativity in worship; we used candles and an Advent wreath, and invited friends for an evening of Advent worship. I began doing Advent and Lent meditations and tried to look beyond chocolate at Easter.
The next major catalyst was having my own children. I looked forward to teaching my children the mysteries of faith and prayer and I wanted our family worship to be fun, memorable and creative. I read and research more, not just about the church year, its history and significance but also for symbolic and imaginative ways of celebrating. So began the journey of developing a liturgical lifestyle for our family. Since then I have added more and more books to my shelves and probably waste too much time reading blogs and websites for ideas. I hope that this blog will save you some time by pooling useful resources in one place. I now have a huge file of ideas – I look forward to sharing them with you.
The first books I bought and which started me off:
A Feast of Festivals: Celebrating the Spiritual Seasons of the Year by Hugo Slim.
More about books later.
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