Everyone thinks and lives in terms of seasons… but you’d be hard pressed to realise that churches do. Perhaps.
Traditional seasons
There are reasons why churches have backed away from seasons as the focus of their prayers. One is that our modern city life is much less affected by the traditional seasons than in rural days. Whether it rains or not is more a matter of inconvenience than crops growing. To focus on seasons makes us appear out of touch. Another is that, rightly or wrongly, seasons have become associated with formal, Catholic inclinations.
And so we have moved away from seasons and in our evangelical churches our focus is shaped by the current sermon series.
The church’s seasonal calendar does have things to commend it though. Whether they understand the meaning or not Christmas and Easter are still times in which our whole community is involved. Of course we celebrate Christmas and Easter, but the seasonal calendar can help to put these celebrations in context. For example in the month leading up to Easter we are reminded through sentences of Scripture and prayer to repent and be disciplined, then to serve only God, we are reminded of the transfiguration and to turn to God, then the promise of new life, achieved through the resurrection of Jesus.
New seasons
But the problem remains that as a society we don’t operate in these seasons.
We do, however, have our new seasons. Some of the common ones are
• school terms
• sport seasons, for teams we support (watch grand final day), sports we play and sports we attend when our children play
• ‘check out season’ (From Melbourne Cup to Australia Day), when minds are on anything but work
• stages of life season, which last for extended periods: such as small children or retirement season
• diurnal depression season, where the reduced sunlight of winter leads to a long lasting malaise.
• major upheaval events, such as the recent floods and earthquakes
You will notice from this list that not everyone is involved in the same seasons, which makes it difficult for a whole group to celebrate any one of these seasons.
Some thoughts
The gospel of Jesus has something to say to every situation and challenges every circumstance of life.
This leads to me to suggest
• think about the seasons through which some of our membership and wider society go, and celebrate these with them.
• think how to target and use the seasons such as check out season to reach people
• challenge our self centeredness by calling those not in the particular season to celebrate alongside those who are
• recognise that some seasons are widespread and shared by our church and wider community and be involved in them; for example the major upheaval events. I have met several people who have come to churches this year because of the natural turmoil and just wanted to come and pray.
• see if we can influence our wider society with the seasons we know to be important (such as Easter) by sharing with them in the seasons of their life.
