Colors of the Church Year

If you've spent much time with a child at Savior, you've probably heard them sing their song about the colors of the church year (and if you haven't heard it, you should ask one of them to sing it for you!):

Purple says: get ready, for the feast is near.
White says: rejoice, the feast is here.
Green is for the growing time the rest of the year;
Red is for Pentecost, Holy Spirit Day.

This song helps orient children to the rhythms of the liturgical year, in which fasts (Advent and Lent) are followed by feasts (Christmas and Easter), and much of the year is neither feast nor fast, but instead Ordinary Time. (The term "Ordinary Time" comes from the way it's counted in ordinal numbers — the first Sunday after Pentecost, the fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, etc. But it's also ordinary in the other sense as we go about our ordinary work.)

We mark each new season in the church year by changing the color of the altar cloth, banners, vestments worn by clergy, even the tablecloths on the Welcome and Info tables. Although there is some variation, most liturgical churches use a somber purple during Advent and Lent. Feasts are marked by white or gold, colors that remind us of the glory and splendor of God. Red is the color for Pentecost, bringing to mind the tongues of fire that danced on the heads of the disciples when then Holy Spirit came upon them. And Ordinary Time is green, symbolizing a time of work and growth in the power of the Spirit.

Why use liturgical colors?

We use symbols to mark all sorts of seasons and holidays: the pots of mums that indicate the coming of fall; the red and green decorations that presage Christmas; the banners and balloons in a yard that point to some special event. Likewise, the changing colors point us to shifts in the church year. Especially for those of us new to the rhythms of the liturgical calendar, a new color reminds us of a shift as we cycle through fasting, feasting and growing.

Also, liturgical worship seeks to engage all of our senses: our ears and minds as we hear and learn, and also our bodies as we touch and taste the bread and wine, make the sign of the cross on our bodies, stand for the Gospel and kneel for the confession of sin. Liturgical colors engage our eyes, giving us visual cues to the story told in the church calendar of longing for Christ, celebrating Christ, and growing in the body of Christ.

Liturgical colors beyond the sanctuary

As we orient our lives towards the gospel, the cycle of the liturgical year helps us to focus on different parts of God's story. If you find the liturgical colors helpful in pointing you towards the presence of God in our lives, you might consider incorporating the colors into your home. A colored candle is a simple way to mark the season; if you have a prayer corner or prayer table, you might incorporate the seasonal color.

And perhaps you can also learn the children's song, immersing yourself along with them in the rhythms of the church year and the great story of God's love for us.

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Sarah Lindsay currently serves as the Director of Communications and Coordinator of Children’s Ministry at Savior. Sarah has a background in teaching (English literature and writing) and she enjoys reading and writing. She has been an Anglican since she discovered liturgical worship in college; she and her family joined Savior in 2017.

Spotlight on New Members

On June 1st, we welcomed several new members. In today's "Spotlight" post, get to know two of them — Amy Allan and Shellie Morgan.

1. Where do you live now, and where are you from?

Amy Allan

Amy: I currently live in Wheaton, but have lived quite a transient life including Miami, FL; Vernon, NY; Washington DC; Ithaca, NY; Columbus, OH; Syracuse, NY; Indianapolis, IN; Rochester, NY; St. Louis, MO.

Shellie Morgan

Shellie: I was born and raised in Southern California (Torrance), the youngest of 4 children. After high school, I (reluctantly) moved with my parents to Illinois. We lived in Roselle, then moved to Decatur for about 9 months, and then back to Bloomingdale. After 2 winters here, my parents moved back to California! I currently live in Bartlett., where I've lived since 1987.

2. Who shares your home?

Amy: I have two amazing sons, Blake (senior at Baylor University) and Riley (junior at Wheaton College). Although we currently do not have any pets, we previously had a hilarious strawberry-loving turtle named Juanita.

Shellie: My son is grown and lives in Hoffman Estates. I am a foster for Anderson Animal Shelter, so I am kept busy with kittens during the spring and summer months. Some empty nesters turn the extra bedroom into a guest room or a den, mine is the foster room now!

3. What do you do when you’re not at church?

Amy: When I am not at church, I am likely to be found researching or writing on my Old Testament Ph.D. dissertation exploring the emotive dimensions of the relationship between Yahweh and his people in the books of Hosea, Amos, Micah, and Zephaniah. I absolutely love studying the Word of God! I am also a professional pianist and enjoy performing and teaching private piano lessons. For fun, I love to workout at the gym, explore the beauty of nature, and laugh with friends.

Shellie: I handle the business office functions in our administration department at the library (so, not a librarian!). I suppose it's not surprising that I've ended up working at a library given my love for words and books. Besides reading, I also enjoy paper crafting (card making specifically), bird watching and watching British shows online.

4. What are some favorite books?

Amy: A few of the authors who have deeply impacted my faith journey are Walter Brueggemann, Abraham Heschel, Ellen F. Davis, Lauren Winner, Scot McKnight, Anne Lamott, Carolyn Custis James, and Henri Nouwen.

Shellie: Picking a single favorite book is pretty much impossible, but I can share a few of my favorites. My long-standing favorite fiction book is To Kill a Mockingbird. I dust it off every couple of years and it's like getting together with an old friend. The writing is lovely and captivating and the storyline compelling. And who can forget the classic line, "Miss Jean Louise, Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your Father's passing". Other fiction favorites are the Harry Potter series - which covers all the bases: fantasy, adventure, friendship, good vs. evil, loyalty, trust, consequences for our actions, courage, love and sacrifice; Hinds Feet in High Places (which I just finally go around to reading recently) and then a toss up between The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe or The Great Divorce. On the non-fiction end of things, I highly recommend Just Mercy by Byran Stevenson, an eye-opener for me on our incarceration system, and Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall, a story of racism and poverty colliding with faith and unconditional love.

5. What brought you back to Savior after your first visit?

Amy: So many incredible aspects of Church of the Savior brought me back after my first visit: powerful preaching, warm welcome, worshipful spirit, and a healing environment.

Shellie: The sense that I was treading on Holy Ground. The Spirit of God was palpable the first time I visited. From the beautiful liturgy, to the wonderful blend of music, to the welcoming atmosphere - it was so lovely it was all I could do to refrain from weeping with joy. The second week I attended, Alice made a point of reaching out to introduce herself and welcome me. When I went to the Paschal candle making event, Sandy Richter warmly welcomed me and made sure everyone there met me. It was clear that this was a community who cared for one another, was welcoming to strangers, and above all, loved God deeply. I knew this was a community I wanted to call home and become a part of.

6. What are your passions?

Amy: I have a tremendous passion for the oppressed – abuse survivors, immigrants, the poor, marginalized, and overlooked of society. I also deeply love studying the Word of God and worshipping.

Shellie: I am passionate about women and social justice issues. In the past I've led women's small groups, served in the human trafficking ministry, and helped put together a refuge welcome kit for World Relief.

Staff Update: Father Kevin

If you’ve listened to a few of my sermons, then you know I’m a huge fan of fine coffee and the Chicago Cubs. A third passion—hobby?—of mine doesn’t get mentioned in my sermons, but I love helping other people preach. I know, how much of a hobby can that be, given that preaching is part of my work? (We Enneagram 3s never quite know how to take time off.)

Still, as much as I love to preach, I find even more joy coaching others, especially at this season of my life. I believe that anyone can learn to preach, and that most churches are filled with people who have teaching gifts that are waiting to be developed and released. Church of the Savior is living proof of this.

Last year and this year, I’ve devoted my study week to training Anglican rectors in preaching seminars. Over the years, I’ve also contributed to a preaching podcast (Monday Morning Preacher), website (PreachingToday.com), and encyclopedia (The Art and Craft of Biblical Preaching).

I give myself to this, because I believe good preaching changes lives. (If you’re wondering, I define “good” as biblical, clear, prayerful, applied, and passionate.) Preaching builds churches, instills faith, gives courage, opens a vision of heaven, exalts Christ. As I do my cardio workout each day, I often listen to sermons by other preachers, because those fill my soul.

Our Anglican tradition has been blessed with outstanding preachers, from George Whitefield to John Stott to Rennis Ponniah to Tish Harrison Warren. Our tradition, which focuses on Word and Sacrament, remains healthy wherever those are balanced, where the Word is as substantial as the Bread and Wine of the Holy Table.

So on I go, this skinny preaching geek, hoping to leave behind a next generation of people who will preach their heart out.

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Kevin Miller was editor and vice-president at Christianity Today for 26 years and then associate rector at Church of the Resurrection for 5 years. He has been the rector at Savior since January 2017, and is also the co-founder of PreachingToday.com and CTPastors.com.

What Is the Feast of Pentecost?

This Saturday, Savior will celebrate the feast of Pentecost. This feast marks the end of Eastertide, the season of celebrating the resurrection, and the beginning of Ordinary Time.

Pentecost, so named because it is the fiftieth day after Jesus' resurrection, is the day when the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples. As Luke describes in the book of Acts, "Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They [Jesus' followers] saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them" (Acts 2:2-4, NIV).

Ten days after the ascension of Jesus to the Father, the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus' followers just as Christ had promised. And the spirit immediately begins to work among the disciples, as they speak in multiple languages and as Peter preaches a sermon that causes 3,000 people to follow Christ.

When we celebrate Pentecost, we remember this moment when the Holy Spirit appeared as tongues of fire and poured gifts into the disciples. We decorate with the color red on the altar, red drapes on the cross, and red vestments for clergy and for prayer and communion ministers; the red vividly reminds us of the fire of the Spirit.

Even though the feast of Pentecost is a single day in the church year, Ordinary Time is named for the ordinal numbers counting off from Pentecost: the first Sunday after Pentecost, the second Sunday after Pentecost … the twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost, and so on. Ordinary Time is the longest season of the church year, a time of ordinary work and growth between the great feast of Eastertide and the holy waiting of Advent.

But as we count the weeks through Ordinary Time, we are constantly brought back to this day of Pentecost. Why does this matter?

Pentecost marks the moment when the Holy Spirit came into the church and into the followers of Jesus — and although none of us were present with the disciples when those tongues of flame appeared, we are still the church and still followers of Jesus, and the Holy Spirit still moves among us.

Ordinary Time may not have the exciting feasts of Christmas or Easter, those high notes in the church year. But in Ordinary Time, we are reminded of the constant work of the Holy Spirit in our churches and in our lives.

Like those first disciples, we live in a world where Jesus has gone to be with the Father and is no longer living incarnate among us. But like the first disciples, we are not left bereft at the Ascension. We, too, have the gift of the Spirit.

And so, as we enter this season of Ordinary Time, of ordinary work and growth and play, let us watch for the work of the Holy Spirit among us. This work is sometimes dramatic but often slow and quiet and, yes, ordinary as the Spirit cultivates its fruits within us.

Pentecost concludes Eastertide by reminding us that the resurrected Christ has given us his Spirit, the Spirit whose work guides and sustains the church in all of its works throughout the ages. And Pentecost launches us into Ordinary Time with the knowledge that God is indeed with us in our times of lament and repentance, in our times of joyous celebration, and in all the ordinary days of our lives.

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Sarah Lindsay currently serves as the Director of Communications and Coordinator of Children’s Ministry at Savior. Sarah has a background in teaching (English literature and writing) and she enjoys reading and writing. She has been an Anglican since she discovered liturgical worship in college; she and her family joined Savior in 2017.

A Reflection on Embodied Worship

For years I’ve been trying to articulate for myself and for others what makes the way we Anglicans celebrate Holy Week and Easter unique. In my time in the Anglican church, I have been deeply formed by Holy Week. Holy Week has profoundly shaped how I think about the church as the family of God, God’s Kingdom, and the purpose of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. It’s been difficult for me to find the words to describe what I feel and have experienced. But this year, I’ve realized that the Resurrection is embodied to me through our worship in a way I hadn’t experienced before becoming an Anglican, and it’s our embodied worship that makes an immense difference in our discipleship.

Holy Week is a deeply embodied experience. In our celebration, our bodies play an active role. Our bodies are active in our worship across the church calendar: we sit, we stand, we kneel, we taste, we sing. But during Holy Week, we take this embodied worship to the next level by marching around outside the church and waving palms, by washing one another’s feet, by touching the wood of the cross. We can feel the heat from the new fire and the candles. We hear the announcement of the good news in the ringing of the bells. We dance around the aisles, sweating because we’re so tightly packed and the air conditioning can’t keep up. At the end of Holy Week, on Easter Monday, I always feel bone-tired.

All of this lively worship leads me to contemplate death. I think we find it easy to think about Jesus’ death in the abstract only—we don’t yet know Jesus’ literal body personally, and he ultimately wasn’t dead for very long. It’s more comfortable to disembody Jesus’ death than to identify with Jesus’ death in our own dying bodies. We like to think about Jesus as a person who ate and drank and ran and danced and enjoyed his body in the ways we enjoy ours. It’s scary to think that Jesus’ body experienced the destruction of Sin and Death the way that ours do and will. In our Communal Lament devotional for Lent this year, the stories and their authors returned to the idea of bodily suffering again and again. I was struck by how even our mental and emotional suffering affects our bodies. We don’t want to die, but Holy Week doesn’t let us escape the truth that it is only in dying that we will find true life. Jesus could only give us life through the death of his own body.

A few weekends ago, at our youth retreat, we focused our teaching and reflection times on the theme of “Embodied Spirituality.” We wanted our students to wrestle with the mystery that we are “embodied spirits” and that at the same time we are made of “spiritual flesh.” We wanted them to contemplate the importance of their bodies primarily because our internet saturated culture is literally killing the bodies of young people. Suicide is spiking among teenagers, and I suspect that it has something to do with how having a “life” on the internet can denigrate our embodied lives. Hating our bodies is not new to humanity, but the internet allows us to think that we can get away from our bodies or that we don’t really need our bodies to be ourselves. This kind of death does not bring life.

In all of this, I am reminded of Paul’s message to the Corinthian Christians about what the gospel has to do with bodies:

Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. . . .
But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For he “has put everything under his feet.”

— 1 Corinthians 15:1-6, 20-27, NIV, emphasis added

I love how this passage brings to light for us both the humanity and divinity of Jesus’ body. The post-resurrection appearances of Jesus demonstrate that there is a clear degree of similarity between Jesus’ old body that died and his new resurrected body. But most importantly, Jesus’ resurrected body is a new body, and both of those aspects are important. Our bodies are now subject to Death. In his resurrected body, Jesus defeats death. And someday, we will also have death-defeating, resurrected bodies. They will be similar to our earthly bodies now, but they will be also be transcendent, resurrected, and almost unrecognizable in their resistance to death. And as we look forward to Ascension Sunday, we can be confident that we have an Advocate who stands on our behalf at the right hand of the Father in his body. This is the same body that we share now in the Eucharist, and this is the same body that we will share at our own resurrection.

So when I think about how God met me during Holy Week, how he continues to meet us through Easter season, how he meets us in our Anglican worship, I continue to be humbled and encouraged that he meets us in his body.

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Ellen works at Savior as the Youth Coordinator. She is also an Editor of Bibles & Reference at Tyndale House Publishers; she has worked there since 2014. She has worked and volunteered in a variety of youth ministries over the past decade and she began attending Savior in 2017.