WHAT’S NEXT
First, I’d just like to say THANK YOU for joining me on this “ordinary” journey. It’s such a privilege to be able to journey with folks through the calendar, this amazing and beautiful way of living the story of Jesus and living into the life of Jesus and the life of the church—the Gospel.
I’ve found the liturgical calendar to be extraordinarily life giving for me and my life with God. It’s why I have written these books and shared them with you as a resource and devotional help. I hope, I pray that this has been helpful, instructive and inspiring in your pursuit of Jesus and the Kingdom that is always and already near.
As I mentioned in the book, the season of Ordinary Time is only half way through. We’ve still got 13 more weeks! For me that is good news. I need all the time I can get to follow Jesus in my everyday, ordinary life.
I wanted to give a few resource here that might help you over this second half of Ordinary Time to stay on point while you make this journey. Then after these resources I’ll tell you a bit more about this project I am working on and how you can keep going!
Some Resources for Ordinary Time
(some of these you may have picked up on as you read the OT book)
* The Lectionary Page :: This is a really simple way to get the Sunday lectionary scripture reading and to follow the calendar of feasts and fasts and things like that. It’s simple but helpful.
The ESV Bible Webpage has a great little site and if you click on PLAN and then on DAILY OFFICE LECTIONARY it will take you to daily readings, all of which come from the Book of Common Prayer and church calendar.
Pray As You Go is a great resource, I use it regularly. A brief audio guided prayer to get your day started.
The Trinity Mission is a great resource for daily prayer. On the site you can follow along with morning, mid-day and evening prayers (as found in The Book of Common Prayer). You can even listen to an audio version or just read along. Again, this site follows the lectionary, the church calendar readings. You can click on their daily scripture readings and get easy access to the daily office scripture readings, also found in The Book of Common Prayer .
And here are a couple books I would recommend if you want to follow along that way.
Living the Christian Year: Time to Inhabit the Story of God :: Bobby Gross
Journey into the Heart of God: Living the Liturgical Year :: Philip H. Pfatteicher
Following Jesus: Biblical Reflection on Discipleship :: NT Wright
Mark for Everyone :: NT Wright
To be honest, there are not a ton of devotional resources on Ordinary Time. Even some of the books above aren’t specifically on Ordinary Time or might not be exactly a devotional on this time of the year. Your best bet might be to grab some kind of book or devotional on discipleship or on Christian living. Anything that will take you deeper into one of the these themes of this time of the year.
Here are a few recommendations
* The Cost of Discipleship * The Divine Conspiracy * Simply Christian * One Life * The King Jesus Gospel * A Long Obedience in the Same Direction * Mere Discipleship
AS FOR THIS PROJECT
This project through the liturgical year is really meant to be a resource and a help to church communities, youth groups, families and individuals. It’s an introduction and devotional resource for folks, leading them into the beauty and depth of the Christian Year.
So far I’ve written three books in this series; Advent, Lent and now Ordinary Time. These three books make up approximately half the calendared liturgical year. My hope would be that people grab these and journey along with their community and with their families. I also hope this wets your appetite for this sort of thing and that in a year of so you’re ready for the rest of it!
Over the next year I hope to be writing the remainder of the years daily devotionals and meditations. The hope would be to compile all the content of the three books already written and the new content I will be writing, creating one book to rule them all (or something like that). One book to lead you and your community through the entire year of the church calendar.
What I need / How you can help
I need your input, your feedback and your participation. The more feedback we get, the more sales of the existing books and the more demand we have for this entire projects completion the faster it will all get done and the more incentive my publisher will have to get it out there. ;-)
I would love to hear from you!
email me: erik@erikwillits.com
email my publisher: The Youth Cartel
And do all the tweeting, facebooking, instagramming, yelping, woofing or whatever clever social media platforms you have to spread the word of the books and share your thoughts.
Amazon is also a really big deal! If you’ve read any of the books and want to leave your feedback on Amazon, that would be incredibly helpful!
Thanks friends! I look forward to continuing this journey with you and with Jesus, our risen and reigning Lord!
Grace and peace
Erik