We have entered the longest season of the church year, Ordinary Time, which stretches from the week after Pentecost all the way until Advent ends and restarts our church calendar. As the days get longer and the temps get higher, we use this time to bring the high holy days of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost into our ordinary, everyday lives. We find little ways to incorporate the Embodied Christ into our embodied lives. 

To use a sports metaphor (a world I am admittedly only vaguely familiar with), this is the practice, honing the fundamentals, between the big games, so that the habits flow naturally on those high holy days. Maybe this is even dribbling in the driveway between practices… or better yet, dribbling as you walk to school, because it’s just such a part of who you are and what you’re about that the basketball is with you wherever you go, whatever you’re doing. It starts with our habits, because, as Vince Lombardi said, “…watch your habits, they become your character…” If our purpose in life is to embody the character of Christ as his hands and feet, then we’ve got to take a look at the habits of our life.

Our new Book Club will be discussing just that sort of wherever you go, whatever you’re doing approach to Christian Discipleship. It’s starting today at 6pm in the church yard, so bring your own dinner, let the kiddos play in the fence and let’s talk about it. Habits of the Household by Justin Whitmel Earley, gives practical ways to begin to instill daily habits of Christian Discipleship in your own life and home. He talks about the various places to insert them, morning routines, mealtimes, bedtime just to name a few. He offers suggestions for how to go about this, but more importantly, he invites you to consider for yourself and your family what real life discipleship looks like in your house. 

While this book is written from a dad of younger children, and that experience comes through, it is by no means only for families with young children. Anyone can benefit from adapting the ideas in this book to their own situation, whether you’re a single person or married, whether you have children or not, whether those kids are at home or not, we all can instill Christ in our daily lives, and can encourage and learn from one another in every life stage. 

You can order a copy from Amazon or your favorite bookstore, or get it as an ebook… or if you don’t have time to read, sign up here for a link to the online videos that recap the book and will prepare you for discussion.