The Beauty of Following the Church Calendar

Kay >> I’m Kay Daigle. Welcome to the Beyond Ordinary Women Podcast and video. Today, our guest is Nika Spaulding. Welcome, Nika.

Nika >> Thank you. I’m excited to be here.

Kay >> We’re glad you’re here. You know, I was looking at your bio. You sent us a new bio the other day, and it occurred to me that I never really asked you about having a zoology degree from the University of Oklahoma. What is that about?

Nika >> Oh, so I will say I was originally pre-med. So while having a zoology degree is incredible, I originally thought I was going to go to med school. And O.U. weirdly doesn’t have a biology program. They have a zoology program that feeds into a med school which is so strange because Oklahoma State has a biology program that feeds into a vet school.

So it’s not I don’t know why we’re you know, part of the reason why, though, I actually know the real reasons because we had world class scholars in that field at O.U. and we have world class research facilities, so they just kind of combine them. But even though I don’t use my degree, I am utterly fascinated by the animal kingdom.

And so it was a really fun degree for me to get. And it always surprises people when they find out that’s my bachelor’s degree. So I joke, though, with that degree, I’m not even qualified to like work at a zoo unless I’m in the gift shop. So I would have to go on to a lot more school.

But, you know, there’s always time if I decide to go that route.

Kay >> Well, I love that. I wasn’t sure if you started zoology because you just wanted to go in that direction and then God changed your mind or if there was something else behind it.

Nika >> So it’s definitely med school. And then to this day, I mean, even when I was a kid, if I saw blood, vomit, anything that doctors see on a routine basis, I get weak in the knees, I get sick to my stomach, I get all of these things. And I really was like, that’s okay. I’m going to push through.

And so I was on my way to the MCAT in college at O.U. and God was like, you really, you really don’t get it, do you? And I finally was like, all right, Lord, what is it you would have me do? So took a hard left into theology. So I don’t know anybody who has a zoology/theology degree other than me.

I don’t know anybody. And so, you know, but that’s all right. Maybe there’ll be more someday.

Kay >> I don’t know either. You’re just unique. Probably in the whole world.

Nika >> Sure. Well, it took me a while to figure out. I should probably follow God, so maybe I’m not unique in that way. I just went a weird route to that, but. Yeah. So it’s fun, though.

Kay >> Well, that’s fun. Well, you also have a master of theology at DTS, and you have a DMin from Northern Seminary. So you have definitely made up for not having some sort of Bible degree, I suppose.

Nika >> Yeah.

Kay >> at O.U. So we are talking about the church calendar today, and I’m sure many of our viewers are as ignorant about the church calendar as I was years ago, because I did not grow up in a church that observed the church calendar.

So would you tell us what it even is?

Nika >> Yeah. Yeah. One, I love that you call it the church calendar, because sometimes people call it the liturgical calendar. And, you know, theology is great, but theology has its own vocab that often makes it difficult for people to know what we’re talking about. And so I prefer we just use words that make a lot more sense. So it’s the church calendar and the reason why you can call it the church calendar is for thousands of years, the church all across the world would celebrate seasons that revolved around the life of Christ.

And the idea was, as churches all over the world and throughout history would be oriented to the seasons of Jesus’s life as opposed to whatever the other seasons are. So throughout history, you might have seasons based on when the produce comes in. You know, you kind of think of farming communities that have like their harvest or their lives revolve around the moons or things like that.

In America, we sort of have, you know, Christmas, you know, Presidents Day, Super Bowl Sunday. But, you know, sort of our liturgical calendar is a little different. But the idea is life is busy, life is crazy. So what if we orient our year around the life of Christ and then use that time to really focus on these different seasons?

And so we’ve actually, we’ve done two previous podcasts on part of the liturgical calendar, the church calendar. And so we’ve talked about Advent together, which is a season before Christmas, where you’re really preparing yourself to receive the gift that is Jesus at Christmas. And then we talked about Lent, which is the season before Easter, where you’re really preparing yourself for the truth of Easter.

I mean, you know, we talked in those podcasts of—if you’re just kind of doing it how to do, and then all of a sudden Easter Sunday comes and you’re like, “Oh man, life changing, eternity changing, cosmic changing moment on the cross me. And then you go back to work on Monday.” We argued Hey, maybe you didn’t get the most out of that Easter season.

And so those two seasons are just two of the entire church calendar. And so and then one of the things I love, if you look up and we’ll put this and I know we’ll put this in the resources for you all—the church calendar, any time you Google it, I have never seen it in a straight line. It’s always in a circle.

And the idea behind that is it’s a cyclical every year, year in and year out for 2000 years, the church is saying this is how time moves and it’s all moving toward the culmination of time. But if you think about it, let’s we’ll start with Christmas because that’s in January. Well, Christmas is obviously at the end of December, but.

Kay >> Christmas is the beginning of the church calendar.

Nika >> Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah. So you have yeah. So you have Christmas Day.

Kay >> Yeah, and let me just throw this in you have sent us a the graph with the circle and we’ll probably show that as you’re talking.

Nika >> Yeah. Good.

Kay >> So they’ll be able to see it unless they’re listening on a podcast. But if you are listening on a podcast, you can always go to our website and I will actually try to post this on the page where the whole podcast is posted.

Nika >> Love it.

Kay >> So you can look at it.

Nika >> Yeah.

I know for those of you listening, if you’re listening as a podcast, then chances are you’re like me and you’re driving, in which case don’t do this. But if you’re just, you know, vacuuming around your house or you’re waiting in the carpool line, Google real quick, go to the United Methodist Church and Google the Christian calendar or something because it is so helpful to have it in front of you.

Do not do that if you’re driving, but if you’re listening. So if you think about Christmas Day, you know, December 25th, which there are, I will I do want to there are some church traditions that celebrate Christmas at different times. But for the most part Christians throughout history celebrate it on December 25th. Well that actually kicks off what we call Christmas season, Christmastide.

And so during those couple of weeks before the Magi come and visit Jesus, that’s Christmastide which I don’t know about you but I love more Christmas and so you know the idea of one day and if you’ve ever seen you know that my true love gave to me 12, you know the 12 gifts of Christmas and you’re like, why would you get 12 gifts at Christmas?

Well that’s actually because of the 12 days of Christmastide after December 25th. And so you have that season of Christmas and then we have what we call Epiphany Sunday, which is the Sunday where the Magi come. We celebrate Jesus. After that we kick off what’s called ordinary time, and there’s several weeks of it. Ordinary time is always green in the calendar.

And we’ll talk about why as we keep going. After ordinary time then we kick off a season of Lent, which starts with Ash Wednesday. And if you’re from New Orleans, then you have Mardi Gras. You get all of your all of your sins out of the way, so to speak. And then, you know, and that is kind of the I say that tongue in cheek.

I’m sure there are some that do. But the reason why you sort of party on Tuesday is because starting on Wednesday, Lent is a season typically of fasting, self-denial, so that you can focus on what Christ has done for you at Easter. Then you have . . .

Kay >> And I think Mardi Gras has become pretty universal these days.

Yes. Everybody likes Mardi Gras.

Nika >> Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there’s something to be said for like the culture of Mardi Gras. I will say, I have I remember growing up and people like you ever want to go to the Mardi Gras? And I’m like, no, not even a little bit. I have no desire to do that.

But I do think this I it is an interesting phenomenon to say that people were serious enough about their self-denial of Lent that they got all of theirs all of their partying out of the way to where I’m like, at least even in that which I don’t recommend—you just get all your partying out of the way before a season of denial.

But that tells you something about people practicing in these communities that they took Lent seriously. And so Lent is several weeks where you’re focusing on Easter coming, and this and the color for Lent is purple so Advent and Lent, the seasons of Waiting are purple.

And then you of course, have Easter. The color for Easter Day is gold is typically set apart. Either Christmas and Easter are both gold or just Easter, depending on your tradition. Of course, Easter, the day we celebrate the risen Christ, and then after Easter is Eastertide and so you are in a season where again, one day is just not enough to celebrate what Jesus does for you on Easter.

And then 50 days after that, we have Pentecost, which we as Christians, we’ll talk a little bit more about this. It’s a red day and red is from this is from fire, because on Pentecost in the Scriptures, fire comes and hangs out over people’s head. And we’ll talk about why that is. But we celebrate Pentecost is the day the Holy Spirit comes the birth of the church.

So that’s a red day. And then we kick off a long season of ordinary time long season of green. And so when you think of the colors, you have purple for the seasons of waitings, gold for the high holy days of Christmas and Easter, green for ordinary time, which is I when the first time I heard about ordinary time, I was like, oh, so the boring time, like the time when nothing happens.

But I would argue perhaps it might be some of the most important seasons to prepare you for the high holy days. And then we have red for Pentecost. And so—and then again every year we just go through this cycle where we’re saying our life is centered around Jesus so that our calendar reflects that reality. Because it’s so easy for us to say our lives revolve around Jesus, but then our lives revolve around work, carpool, PTA, sports, you know, all of the things that pull us away from Jesus.

And so this calendar, this church calendar is a beautiful way every week to remind us where we are in time as it relates to Jesus.

Kay >> You know, it also makes me think about the fact that for churches or people who have never been introduced to any of this or they’ve never tried any of this. If you read through the Bible, you know that basically God had the Jews have a calendar of the year. Their New Year was wrapped around God.

And then they had these other feasts of the year that they were supposed to all participate in. So this isn’t like new to some sort of high liturgical church.

Nika >> Yeah, that’s right.

Kay >> And even the churches that don’t do the whole church calendar, of course, do Easter and Christmas.

Nika >> Yeah. And they and they even do. It’s interesting, even if they only do Christmas and Easter, they’ll also do you know, they’ll do like seasons where they’re, you know, doing fundraising. And that’s an important time where the whole church is focusing on, you know, giving or something like that. Or they’ll do a sermon series.

And again, while that may not be what the high church calendar looks like, it’s still a dedicated season where you’re focusing on one thing. And that’s really all this is. And it’s something that then you join with churches all throughout history. So, okay, you’re exactly right. The idea that the church invented the church calendar is silly because really God invented it and then he gave it to his people. And then and naturally and in fact, almost all of our days as the Christian church calendar flow out of really the Jewish calendar.

So what was Passover for them? Became Easter for us because that’s when Jesus died and rose again. Their Pentecost becomes our Pentecost, and there’s was the giving of the law at Sinai. Ours becomes the giving of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the church obviously they don’t have the birth of they don’t have a Christmas equivalent for themselves, but they did have three major feasts a year and every week a Sabbath.

And you just didn’t violate those. I mean, you oriented your entire life around these days, these high holy days to the Lord. And so it’s God’s idea that we would orient our lives around him. And so rather than because we mentioned neither of us grew up in high church environments and neither of us really pastored in them until recently for me.

And because of that, I think sometimes there’s a skepticism people have, or maybe there’s a fear I’ll sometimes hear people go, well, that’s just that’s what the Catholics and the Methodist do. I’m Baptist, or that’s what you know. And sort of and I think in that skepticism, I would want to encourage people there’s something beautiful about the church calendar because it is so easy to forget God.

And I don’t mean that like in some like, oh, I don’t know who God is. I just mean it’s so easy for the demands of life. Think about that. We talked about this when we were talking about Advent. The Christmas season-I mean, I’m already making plans for a party two months from now because if I don’t get it on people’s calendars, it’s not going to happen.

We do a yearly favorite things party and it’s this big, huge thing that we do at my house for all of our friends. But again, my roommates and I had to talk about it in October so that we get on everybody’s calendars because there’s this intensity in that season that has nothing to do with preparing your heart for Jesus.

Now I like to think that there’s nothing wrong with my party. But the point being, if I don’t also celebrate Advent, then the stress of Christmas takes over and I forget this is actually an invitation to intimacy. And so that’s why I like calling it the church calendar, because this is something the church has done forever. It’s not necessarily something that has to be done in high church, and it’s a beautiful gift from the Lord.

Kay >> Right. So, as you said, we have these other podcast/videos on Christmas, on Advent and Lent.

Nika >> Yeah.

Kay >> So let’s go through the rest of the church calendar, and you explain to us how each one came to be, what it means, how it’s celebrated. What can you tell us?

Nika >> Yeah. So Pentecost is one that if you hear the word Pentecost, you might think of the domination like Pentecostals or a faith tradition. But that’s really not the main meaning of Pentecost is actually an event in the Bible. So if we go to Acts Two, this is where this day moves from a Jewish calendar day to a Christian calendar day in Acts Two.

And what’s happening there is the original Pentecost. You had Passover, which was the beginning of the birth of the nation of Israel. God rescues them from Egypt. It becomes a Passover event that becomes their beginning of their calendar day for them. Because, again, like ours is the birth of Jesus. And for them it’s the birth of the nation at Passover.

Fifty days after Passover, they would celebrate Pentecost now it also happened to coincide with the Harvest Festival. So it was also a recognition that God would cause the rain to grow and all of that when they were settled in the land. But part of what they would celebrate at their Pentecost, was if you remember the fire at the top of Sinai and God gives the tablet and the commands and He gives the Lord to Moses and it’s a really incredible moment.

So there’s sort of this like fire element to Sinai and they would. And so every year they would celebrate Pentecost as a celebration of God providing for them in their crops. And also because there is the wheat harvest, they would celebrate that and then they would celebrate the law coming down as they became a nation really incredible, really beautiful celebration.

Fast forward in the life of Jesus. Jesus dies on a Passover week, so he dies on one of the high holy days. So 50 days later is naturally going to be Pentecost for all of the Jewish observers in the life of Jesus.

Well, on this particular Pentecost, though, the Holy Spirit comes. If you remember, says there’s like fire over their heads, which is a clear callback to Mount Sinai. It’s a clear callback to what God did at the original Sinai when he brought the law down. Now he’s doing it as that was a birth of a nation. Now this is the birth of the church. And so there’s this correlation here.

And then you know, Peter gets up, he makes this incredible sermon, and all these people are gathered and it’s like thousands join them that day.

So Pentecost for Christians is the day where we celebrate the birth of the church. The day we celebrate the Spirit being poured out on people, the day we celebrate really the diversity and the beauty of the church. And so it signals to us God is always doing new things.

And so when we’re celebrating Pentecost, we wear red because it harkens back to the fire, which I love, because there’s nowadays you get to wear red in the church calendar. And as someone who went to O.U. I do prefer to wear red. And so I would always be so excited for the red days, so we wear red.

But it’s a reminder that, you know, God had promised the Israelites through them he would bring the nations together, that this is part of God’s promise. And so when the church is born that day, it’s a fulfillment of that promise in many ways, what’s happening that used to be only for Israel.

And of course, outsiders were always welcomed in. But it was a predominantly Israel focus, salvation of the Lord in the Old Testament. Suddenly in Acts, it just blossoms out, and we see the missionaries go everywhere. So if you enjoy being a Christian as a gentile, I would say Pentecost Sunday should be really important to you because it’s the day that the church explodes into growth and the Spirit of God goes out. It’s just an incredible day.

And so that’s why we celebrate Pentecost Sunday. And for us, it’s a reminder God is doing new things and we should be grateful for that.

Kay >> And as you said, grateful that God has brought the Gentiles into the church with the Jews. So, yeah, it really should be much more talked about than it is. I mean, even if you’re not going to celebrate all of these, it does seem like we should really make that a major celebration. Just like Easter and Christmas are.

Nika >> Yeah, it makes me sad because I think the reason why we don’t is there are theological debates about what speaking in tongues is. There are! And because that happens at that original Pentecost and there’s a lot of theological debate, I think a lot of church traditions steer away from it. You know, they kind of put some distance there.

And I think, gosh, there’s so much more going on than speaking in tongues. There is so much more about who we are as the people of God going on. So I think it’s a real miss when we ignore it. And I think it’s a real miss if we only address it in terms of the theological debate. Because what the beautiful thing about the church calendar is, it unites us.

There are a few things today. I mean, Kay we talk about this off camera. It feels like there’s just division everywhere. And so to have something as beautiful as this that has the potential to unite us where we say, oh, of course, we have theological differences, that’s what it means to be Christian. We don’t agree on everything. But we do agree on this that this is the church’s birthday.

I mean, I think if I were a youth group person, I would throw a birthday party every Pentecost Sunday, and just invite the kids to celebrate the birthday of the church. And so, yeah, so here’s my appeal for those of you who lead in ministries, celebrate Pentecost Sunday.I think it’s a really important part for the formation of your people.

Kay >> So I don’t want to forget to ask this question. So I may ask it now? Even though we haven’t talked about ordinary time yet. But if somebody’s listening to this who isn’t on a church staff and has no authority to implement any of this, how would you suggest that they celebrate on their own? Or would it maybe going into ordinary time would be a good way to talk about it.

I don’t know. Yeah, I’ll leave that to you. But that is a question that I have and I didn’t want to forget to ask.

Nika >> Yeah, I love it. Yeah. So I think it would—one, I think all of worship is about formation. So if the idea is am I loving God more, am I loving myself, am I loving my neighbor more? So I would say if you’re listening to this and you want to say you, no you know, you’re not calling the shots.

You’re not going to you know, it’s going to be about you. Maybe your roommates, your family. I would say–One, if you have children, I would encourage you to celebrate it. By marking it as a really important day with a birthday cake, with some way of saying this is the birth the church. And I would talk about all the nations that are represented through Pentecost, you know, we have all these Bible verses, every tribe, tongue, and nation.

Like right now I am sitting in Yukon, Oklahoma. My parents live in a brand new neighborhood. It’s brand new. And there’s a park like 50 yards from me where little kids can play. And already in the little kids handwriting are the letters KKK and the N-word. So I’m planning before I leave town to take some acetone and try to remove that. We live in a world where young people today are being taught to be comfortable with hate, to be comfortable with discrimination, to be comfortable with other-ing people.

And I would say Pentecost is this great moment in our calendar that forces us to say there are no others in Christ. The dividing wall of hostility has been knocked down. So what I would encourage people to do for Pentecost Sunday is take a moment to celebrate that all of these languages will be represented in the new heavens, in the new Earth, and maybe pray for the people in your life who speak a different language than you. Or to reach out to them and say, “I’m so glad you’re my brother and sister in Christ.”

Right? If it’s about formation, then I would say doing something more than just thinking about it, but doing something to celebrate diversity, to celebrate the bigness of God’s gift of the church is how I would encourage people to celebrate Pentecost in their own way. But especially if you have littles, because it bums me.

I’m like, this is so profoundly sad to me that this is what’s happening in my parent’s neighborhood. And so, yeah, that’s what I would say is take time to push back against the darkness of the world. On a day that diversity should be celebrated from our churches.

Kay >> I think that’s really a good word. Yeah. Okay, so what is ordinary time you’ve talked about a little bit, but yeah. Yeah. I mean, it just sounds ordinary.

Nika >> Yeah, yeah. Or even the fact they call it like it’s ordinary, which it does stand for, like ordinal time. This idea is like this, you know, it’s just this long chunk of the year, and it’s two really long chunks. So you have a smaller chunk that’s you know, between basically Christmas and Easter and then or Lent, really. And then you have a long chunk that is after Pentecost, before you get to Advent and you know, as a person who was a pastor, as a resident theologian, it’s so fun to have high holy days like to think about preaching for Pentecost is so fun.

You know, you’re like, this is great. You get to say so many superlative things. So then you get to ordinary time and you’re like, ha, it’s not, it’s not not fun. It’s just what am I going to do during this season? And then you realize, wait a minute, actually, when I do preach on Pentecost, there’s kind of only one sermon I’m going to preach, and that’s from Acts 2.

And when I am preaching out of Christmas, I am going to preach on Jesus is born. And when I am preaching on Easter, I am going to preach that Jesus rose from the dead, because that’s what you preach on those days.

So ordinary time then becomes an invitation to say, okay, what does dedicated maturity and growth look like in the in-between spaces?

And so what ordinary time? The reason why it’s green is because it’s like growth. So you think of it like when things are growing and sort of this natural element to it. It is a season for developing rhythms for spiritual life. And because you’re focusing so much in the high holy days on these big, big moments, ordinary time becomes this invitation of how do we walk with God in the ordinary moments of time, which frankly is most of our lives.

You know, when you think of your life and you kind of if you were to have a timeline, you would have big you know, this is the day my kid was born. This is the day I got married. This is the day of, you know. There are those big moments in life. So we need high holy days but most of our life is the day in, day out walking with God.

And so ordinary time is actually an invitation for sustained period of rhythms of worship, rhythms of connecting with God. And I would argue that if you use ordinary time, well, then when you get to Advent you’re so ready because you’ve been walking with God.

And so when you import even more beauty into the Advent season, you’re going, “Yeah, yeah, I’ve been walking with God. So I’m excited to add more prayers to already my daily prayers. I’m excited to add more worship experiences because I’ve already been walking with God every day.”

And so this is what I would say is ordinary time is an invitation to cultivate the rhythms of life that produce growth. And that is why it’s green. It is necessary for what we do.

If we were always in the high holy days, that’s not what it’s like to walk with God. And so these are these extended seasons where we say, okay, walking with God is not all fireworks and cake and, you know, celebrations. It’s not always family. You know, you think of these big day. Sometimes your whole family gets together and I’m like, “What is it look like in the middle of August to worship God?”

And the answer is day in, day out, cultivation of maturity. And so our ordinary time is absolutely critical. And if you’re a church leader, it’s also the time where you get to preach whatever you want because there’s not a high holy day that’s telling you, you know, if you’re if you’re not preaching, Jesus rose from the dead on Easter, you might be doing something wrong.

But in the ordinary time, you can preach out of, you know, Ruth, because, no, it doesn’t matter. You get to preach whatever you want during that time. So. Yeah, yeah.

Kay >> Yeah. And you gave me this question. So what?

Nika >> Yeah, yeah.

Kay >> So what? I guess it kind of summarizes some of the things you’ve just mentioned, but yeah. So what, why should we do this?

Nika >> Yeah. If you can’t tell, I’m obviously energetic about it because I was so changed when I finally started worshiping around the liturgical, the church calendar. So I went from a mega- church where church calendar was a very foreign idea. I knew about it because of seminary. So I knew, you know, I sort of you’re kind of always aware of what other church traditions are doing. It wasn’t something I participated in.

And then I moved into a space where we did orient our time around it. In fact, one of the first things we ever did was we made a video explainer of the church calendar because we had so many people joining us who had come from that background who are like, “Now, what are we doing? Why are you all in purple? What are we doing?”

And it was during that season of year in and year out worshiping around the church calendar that I was so grateful that it was just built into my life opportunities to slow down. To say, “Okay, this isn’t just another Sunday, this is the beginning of Advent, so I’m going to focus on these virtues” or “Oh, this isn’t just another Sunday this is Pentecost Sunday, and I’m so grateful there will be folks speaking Swahili and Mandarin and Korean in the new heavens and new earth.”

And I’m so grateful for that. And I’m so grateful English will be spoken there because we weren’t the first recipients. You know, we’re the long line of recipients of folks going out and being missionaries toward us. And so part of my energy here. I’m a normally energetic anyways, if you guys have heard me, you’re going to be like, Yeah, right.

She’s always excited. But I would say there is a I’m kind of bouncing in my chair because I want so badly for people to experience the fullness of God. And this is one of those ways that it’s really simple, but it’s really profound because it’s just an invitation to consider because time becomes an instrument of moving you toward God.

And so we mentioned this at the beginning, Kay. You were so right to bring this up. God has always oriented His people toward him because we’re forgetters. We just are I mean, when he rescues them out of Egypt, the first thing he tells us before we even get to Sinai, he’s like, “Hey, guys, every year I want you to celebrate this.”

And it’s in the middle of the narrative. I mean, the story is incredible. You’re like, Oh, my goodness, the plagues and the sea and the rescue and everything. And he’s like, “Do not forget to celebrate this every year.” And you’re going, it was kind of a break up of the narrative. I mean, like, the flow is going pretty good and you realize, Oh yeah, because it’s that important that God does not want them.

You get to Leviticus, there’s all these laws about sacrifices, of course, and then there’s chunks about keeping God’s time. If you look at the Ten Commandments, the Sabbath is included in it because we are forgetters. And so in order to remember what God has done for us, we have to have to.

It’s you know, before we started recording, we were talking about how we’re people that forget in real life. Like we forget, you know, Kay was saying she has to set an alarm to be sure she doesn’t forget what she’s doing.

I have to not only set an alarm, but have to put in the alarm why I set the alarm. Because then when it goes off, I have to be like, “What was I supposed to be doing right now?”

So we need like it’s almost as if the church calendar becomes your alarm for you. It’s set up for you. And so that’s part of this. And then the second, it’s about intimacy. It’s not another thing you have to do. It’s a thing that you get to do that allows you to say, okay, I want to be intentional in this season to grow closer to the Lord, I want to be intentional to focus on God’s grace, or I want to be intentional about that.

And so it’s not about you have to do this. I mean, certainly you can orient your time however you want. But if you order your time around Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Super Bowl Sunday, spring break, you are going to get out of that what you’ve put into it.

Your life will be revolved around sports and entertainment and distraction. And so the invitation in the church calendar is to say, yeah, Super Bowl is not bad. I hope the Lions are in it this year. There’s nothing wrong with Valentine’s. You get half-off chocolate the next day, but it’s not the same thing as preparing your heart for Easter.

And all of that. And so that’s all I’d say.

And then finally saying, we’ve talked about this so many times, we live in a painfully divisive time, especially in the church in America right now. And this is a way to unite believers. There is something really beautiful about a Sunday where I put on the blue or excuse me, purple collar.

And I know that there are Christians all over the world who are also putting on the purple collar. And there are Christians all throughout history who put on the purple collar because we said this time belongs to God. And we are marked by God and we want to usher the people that we lead and worship back toward God.

And there’s something profoundly beautiful about God’s people when Jesus says, “I want my people to be one as the Father and I are one,” this is a small way we can try to practice that as Christians in this world. And so there are a hundred a hundred ways for why it’s so. But these are the ones that I want to put before you encourage people to celebrate the church calendar.

Kay >> I love that. So do you have any recommendations for somebody leading even if it’s just a ministry within the church? Like when I did women’s ministry, what could I have done to encourage women and help them see the beauty of the church calendar?

Nika >> Yeah. One, I would just acknowledge the time. So even if your church-at-large isn’t doing it, you can just say to guys hey. And part of what makes it difficult in women’s ministry Kay and I both know this is often you’re on break during some of the high holy days. So I recognize you often go on break during Christmas and things like that.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t acknowledge it. “Hey, hey folks. Next week we’re taking a break for Christmas, but it will be the first Sunday Advent. And I just want to bring that to your attention.” And the first Sunday of Advent we focus on, you know, whatever it is that we’re focusing on. Two–you can you know, I used to when I was first a women’s minister, I was so dumb, I didn’t know anything.

And so I used to think decorations were a colossal waste of time. And then I realized there is a value to hospitality. There is a value to setting a space that tells people we thought about you and we welcome you here. It can go too far. Don’t get me wrong, some of what I was responding to was, yeah, there was a little.

Kay >> It can take up so much time from you.

Nika >> It can be too much. And I would argue there are certain people like Kay and I who shouldn’t have been anywhere near it. So that’s also not good use of Kay or my time. But all that to say, your hospitality, you challenge them—“Hey folks, we’re going to do purple this next month, or in green. And so let’s find ways of putting green around there. And then let’s acknowledge why it’s green, why we’re decorating it.”

And then I would just say, you know, there’s so much that gets caught and gets taught. And so you don’t have to teach these things necessarily all the time, but you can at the end of time, you know, right before you wrap up your time (getting ready to pray, sending them out to small groups or however you guys organize it) and just say, “Hey, folks, Lent is coming up, “I would encourage you to think about one thing you can give up so that you can spend more time with the Lord.”

And you say that enough weeks in a row and suddenly people kind of go, “Oh, this Lent thing, you know, there might be something to this.”

And then I just think there’s something to remind your people. It is ultimately God’s time. I think of what it’s like to parent today. I’m an aunt. I mean, I’m going to leave here and one of my nieces is skipping school today for some reason, I don’t know. But I’m super excited about it. It’s not my responsibility. So I’m going to take her out to lunch. And, you know, she’s playing hookie. That’s between her and her parents. They can figure that out.

But that being said, I mean, we as a family went out last night to go watch a sports event. And she was late because she had soccer. And if it’s not soccer, it’s my nephew’s clarinet and baseball and my other niece has soccer, too. And it’s on and on and on and on and on and on.

And so there’s a hustle and a pull on women’s time that I’m not going to villainize. I’m not going to be like, oh, your kids shouldn’t be playing sports because you should be at church, you know, seven days a week. I’m not. My name is Nika Spaulding and I grew up playing sports.

I’m never going to say that. But I do think it’s helpful in the midst of that hubbub to be reminded this is though God’s time.

And so you know, as long as God’s time comes first, then how you spend the rest of your time? I think it’s as long as it’s not, you know, obviously, as long as it’s pleasing to the Lord.

And so I think we need to remind people we actually run on God’s calendar. In the culmination of time, it will be a reminder this is all God’s time and space and everything. All that we have, all that exists is the Lord’s. And so I do think it’s important for that.

And then finally, just don’t underestimate the power of ordinary time. If you’re leading a ministry and you’re like, my entire calendar is going to be green, great. Explain what ordinary time is, and invite women to consider one spiritual rhythm that they could work on in all of these weeks so that when Advent rolls around, when Lent rolls around, they are going to be in a place of spiritual growth that prepares them for an encounter with the living God.

And so there are so many ways that you could do this. And then finally and we can put some recommendations we’ve done this on the other podcast, but we can put some recommendations on books about this or resources, where you can also just recommend books and resources for your women.

I think like I’m pretty sure there’s Bible project videos on I know there’s my project on Advent and I don’t know if there’s one on Lent, but there are easy, accessible resources that can help explain this stuff to your women that don’t even have to take time during your time.

You know, you can just let them know about it and on their own time they can watch, study, read all of that.

Kay >> Well, you will be able to find those things at BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org. And if you go to resources and the pull down menu, there’s a media list, but there’s also extra resources. And we will get a list from Nika and put that on there. I think you can probably also find it on the media connection as well.

So before we go, let me also mention that Nika has started a series of books called Theology in Ten that we talked about recently and you can find that at NikaSpaulding.com. Or you can also listen to our conversation about it if you’re just interested before you go to NikaSpaulding.com. And that conversation is called Making the Complex Simple.

So you can go to our blog page and put that name in the search engine and you will be able to find that conversation that we had recently.

Okay. Nika, thank you for this. I really enjoyed talking to you about it. I’ve, you know, I have been celebrating Advent and Lent and Christmas and Easter for a long time, but really had sort of not paid any attention to Pentecost or Ordinary time.

It just was there something to do. It’s just an ordinary time.

Nika >> Yeah.

Kay >> So I’m going to pick up my game here and do a little bit more this time. So we appreciate your being here and we will see you again soon.

Nika >> Thanks Kay.

Kay >> And thank you, all of you who have joined us. And go to our website and just search for anything that you’re interested in. This particular episode and our others are on the Godly Living page. If you go to resources, you go on the dropdown menu, you go to Godly Living, you will be able to find these other resources. We’ve talked about, about Lent and Advent as well.