Who are we and how do we worship?

St. Elizabeth’s is an Episcopal Church, part of the worldwide Anglican Communion. We practice worship in an ancient and biblical way through common written prayer, fellowship, and liturgy. In a sense, this enables worship to be something that we all participate in. This way of worship also helps when our own words fail us; it enables us to feast regularly on the words of God; and it continually calls us back to the grace bestowed upon us, and all people, through the love of Jesus Christ.

Worship in the Anglican tradition invites us to engage our bodies, our minds, and our spirits. Sometimes we kneel or stand, other times we bow. It is often said in the Episcopal Church, “all may, some should, none must.”

At St. E’s, we follow the Christian year, which has for centuries been a way to seasonally organize our year around the life of Christ. The church year begins with Advent, a season of twenty-six days, as we await Jesus’s birth at Christmas. After Christmas, we move into the season of Epiphany, where we celebrate Christ revealing himself to the world. After Epiphany, we move into Lent, where for forty days, we prepare for Christ’s death which begins during Holy Week. Holy Week ends on Easter, when we celebrate Jesus’s resurrection and power over death. After the fifty days of Easter, we remember the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, who sustains us in our life with Christ. This is God sending us their divine presence that we might not ever be alone. Living into this Spirit is living into the life of Jesus. Pentecost is our longest season, and it continues until Advent. The first Sunday after the Feast of Pentecost is Trinity Sunday. All of these seasons are represented by various colors donned in our worship space, and in the clergy’s stoles. At the start of every new church year, our scriptural cycle begins again, as we follow a three-year cycle called the Common Lectionary. Following this schedule enables us to get through most parts of the bible.