St. James is a liturgical church which means we follow a pattern of worship and reading

Scripture. The church year begins with the four-week season of Advent, which is a time of joyful expectation of the birth of Jesus. Christmastide follows and is celebrated for twelve days. The feast of the Epiphany is celebrated on January 6th each year to remember the light of Christ reaching the gentiles, thus becoming universal. There is a period of ordinary time until we get to Lent, which is a time of self-reflection and devotion when we perform special acts of discipline to prepare for the events of Holy Week and Easter. Holy Week is the only time of year that multiple special services are celebrated during the week: Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday. These are followed by the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection at the Great Vigil of Easter and, of course, Easter Day. Unlike in the secular world, Easter is celebrated for 50 days and concludes with the Day of Pentecost, when the disciples were given the gift of the Holy Spirit and began preaching in multiple languages so everyone could hear the mighty acts of God through Jesus. The season following, is the longest in the church year, and is called Ordinary time. Its focus is on the life of the church and hearing of Jesus’s teaching and miracles.

Throughout the year, our readings from Scripture are laid out in the Revised Common Lectionary. The joy of the lectionary is that anyone can know what is being read each Sunday, regardless of what Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist or Roman Catholic Church they attend. The readings are never at the whim of the clergy person.