Worship and Sacred Actions Throughout the Year in Evangelical Denominations and Independent Baptist Churches
Most evangelical Baptist churches have little contact with the Christian year except on the Sunday before Christmas and Easter Sunday. Occasionally one can find a Good Friday service. Many parishioners feel that observance of the Christian year would distract from or even work against the primary mission of the church, which is to implement the Great Commission—making disciples from all nations and baptizing them. Widespread lack of knowledge about most of the themes of the Christian year is combined with a suspicion that those Christians who practice such “non-biblical” activities do so as a dry, unfulfilling ritual, which seems completely irrelevant in our age of spiritual freedom, freshness, and spontaneity from the Holy Spirit. Denominational publishing houses mirror these positions and provide no instruction, not even historical information, on the subject of the Christian year.