Not long ago I had the pleasure of welcoming the Falcon Cubs of Grove Scout Group to St John’s to help them earn their world faiths badge. We talked together about the Christian circle of the year and the different colours that mark our seasons. There are the great white and gold celebrations of Christmas and Easter; the purple weeks of preparation; the red feast of Pentecost… and then there are a large number of ‘ordinary’ weeks in green.
We call this time ‘ordinary’, which makes it sound not very special. And it is true that the focus of this season is less on the special events, and more on ongoing advance of God’s Kingdom: quietly bubbling like yeast in the dough, quietly taking over the garden like a spreading plant. When I teach children about liturgical colours, I often talk about ordinary time as ‘the green growing season’. What looks on the surface like a time when nothing much is happening, can actually be a time of growth.
As part of developing a renewed vision for St John’s, we recently asked for feedback on the new vision statement and the existing vision prayer. One of the questions we asked was: What areas of faith might God be asking us to grow in? Some of the answers highlighted practices like prayer, silence, and Bible reading. Others focused on the call to love and serve others, in our own community and beyond.
What these kinds of growth have in common is that they rarely happen overnight. They flow from everyday patterns that we keep on repeating, habits that shape our lives, daily and weekly rhythms. And they belong together. Like the “tree planted by streams of water” (Psalm 1) we need to let our roots grow deep so we can be nourished and refreshed by God’s grace, and also let our branches grow wide so we can produce fruit that blesses others.
Miriam Jones
This article originally appeared in the St John’s Messenger. If you would like to discuss contributing a future article please contact news@valebenefice.org.uk.
