Archive for the ‘christian year’ tag
Bobby Gross: Living the Christian Year
First Sunday in Advent in November 29
Here at the ESN blog, one of our main topics is spiritual formation in the academy: Christian practices like prayer and Bible study that shape us more and more into the image of Christ. The stress of Christmas may seem to be an unlikely time for spiritual growth, but for centuries, Christians have set aside the season of Advent as a time of spiritual preparation.
Last week, I interviewed Bobby Gross, recently appointed director of InterVarsity Graduate and Faculty Ministries about his new book, Living the Christian Year: Time to Inhabit the Story of God, to learn more about the meaning of Advent and how Christians in the academy could benefit from its observance. Bobby has served InterVarsity in many capacities: as a campus staff worker at the University of Florida, a staff supervisor in Florida, the Southeast, and New York/New Jersey, and, most recently, as a national field director based in Atlanta. You can download the introduction by Lauren Winner and the first chapter from IVP’s website.
Photo by Per Ola Wiberg via Flickr
Micheal Hickerson: How did you come to write a book about living out the Christian year? You’ve told me this wasn’t part of your background growing up.
Bobby Gross: I grew up in a Southern Baptist church and then worshipped in a variety of evangelical churches, but was never part of a church that was particularly liturgical or did anything with the Christian year. In my second year of marriage, my wife Charlene and I moved to Miami and we looked for a church together. She grew up Catholic, and we were wide open to any number of churches – we wanted our church to be smaller rather than larger, multiethnic, spiritually alive, Bible-centered. The church that caught our attention, from an ad in the paper, was a small Episcopal church. We went to visit, and it met all our criteria.
Bobby Gross, Director of InterVarsity Graduate & Faculty Ministries
Charlene was immediately at home and more or less knew what to do in the service. I was lost for some months, really, but I stuck it out and slowly began to appreciate the beauty and the power of the liturgy as framing our weekly worship. Then, in the course of being in the Episcopal tradition, I learned about the Christian calendar and the way that liturgical rhythm, over the whole year, can give shape and meaning to our spiritual lives and reflections.
Working for a broadly evangelical organization, I found myself many times frustrated and saddened by the lack of awareness, even interest, of many churches and many Christians in this tradition and practice that goes back to within a few hundred years of Christ’s life. So I was motivated to write a book that could bridge from the liturgical world over to those who are not part of those kinds of churches. I wanted to make the bridge easy for evangelicals to walk across so that it would feel inviting and helpful to them.
MH: We have similar backgrounds. I grew up Southern Baptist as well and then worshipped at an Anglican church while I was in Canada for my master’s degree. Many people from Baptist or other non-liturgical backgrounds are often suspicious of adopting practices for which we don’t see direct Biblical connections. What are the benefits of observing the Christian year?
BG: First of all, let me point out the Biblical underpinnings for this practice. What’s striking in the Old Testament is that God himself, for his people, instituted a calendar with regular festivals, including pilgrimage. The Jewish year was oriented around certain festivals and certain points of remembrance. The most important, of course, was the remembering of the Exodus by celebrating the Passover. For Jesus, this was part of his life – the festivals, the pilgrimages, the Passover meal, as well as worship in the synagogue. Read the rest of this entry »
