The times they are a-changing.
Growing up as a Southern Baptist in St. Louis in the 60's and 70's, I had no idea what "the church year" meant. We celebrated Christmas, Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, and the Fourth of July, but words like "Advent," "Epiphany" and "Lent" never crossed our lips.
However, my dad was Catholic. He was always off to some holy day worship, and my mom was forever having to make fish (which I hated) for dinner. Imagine my shock when, in the early 90's, I was back home accompanying my mother at a Christmas Eve service where, there on the altar stood an Advent wreath, complete with burning candles!
By this time I was a Covenanter, and well aware of Advent traditions. "Mom!" I whispered. "Since when do Baptists have Advent wreaths?""Oh, we've had that for a while now," she replied proudly. "Each Sunday in December we light another candle and remember another part of the prophecies about Christmas. It's really very nice. You should try it at your church." Talk about reinventing the wheel! And yet, thank God this tradition is being rediscovered.
Postscript: look here for an update.
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2 comments:
In my years as a youth pastor, I constantly came across articles by people who had "discovered" these ancient traditions, and breathlessly called the rest of us to join in. . .as if none of us already were. I am excited to see more churches discover these spiritual practices, but I'm always amused when they assume they are suddenly the experts who need to teach the rest of us, just because they "rediscovered" this in 1998.
My goodness, this one is amusing. Being a Covenanter who had a very brief stay in an SB church, I can speak to just how entertaining and revealing this story is. it reminds me of an everything old is new again phenomenon that happens with my students when a song that has become popular is actually a cover of an older song from a singer or band they haven't heard of. Uh, oh. I'm showing my age.
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