Each Advent we begin a New Church Year.  This Year we are in Cycle C of a three year cycle of Readings and Prayers.  The Three-Year Cycle takes in all of the important readings of the Bible.  The Church season emphasise different aspects of our Lord's life and teaching.  The Lectionary (the table of readings and prayers) is carefully constructed to be the best teaching-aid the Church of God has to offer and it si followed by all the main denominations of the Christian Church.

It has been said, with some truth, that if you want to know what Anglicans believe then you need to join us for worship.  We are what we pray.  Not only the readings at the Eucharist but also those for Morning and Evening Prayer take us deep into the heart of Scripture.  We ponder God's word in great depth and reflect on its meaning with thematic prayers and carefully chosen hymns.  Our Liturgy is one of the riches in the Christian world.

But, of course, we only benefit from this if we join in regularly.  God has so much to teach us but he can only do that if we open our hearts and lives to him and determine to live those lives close to Him.  Being part of the Church community and coming together regularly for Eucharist and other worship is a pattern which has shaped the Christian lives of countless millions in Christian history.  In the early days of the Church, a group of people sought solitude with God by going off alone to live in isolation in the desert.  This was the beginning of monastic life.  Yet every Sunday they would gather together to be with God and each other - to break the bread of the Eucharist and to hear God speaking to them as a community of believers through His Holy Word.  Quite often, in modern society, we live in a secular desert, each going about our own business and busy-ness.  We try to witness to God's love, mercy and justice in our daily lives and we seek by those lives to influence a society which seems to know little of the love of God.  In order to do this work of real 'evangelism' we need to be fed ourselves.  That is what happens on Sunday mornings (and other times in the week).  God draws us apart in order to speak to our hearts.  Together we are more effective witnesses than if we tried to go it alone.  This feeding comes through the Church's reflections on God that the Church Year helps to do.

Liturgy (what we do in Church at every service) is a word which simply means 'work' and specifically 'the work of the people of God'.  By calling us together in worship, God enlists us in the great work of salvation of the world.  But there is another meaning of Liturgy - it is that we must 'work' at our worship.  People who tell me they have got nothing out of a service might not have put much effort into it.  As God speaks through Scripture, the prayers and the music it is hard to believe  that people get nothing out of it.  Also we need each other to pray, ponder and participate if our Worship is to be truly authentic.

So this New Year I suggest that we make a really big effort to worship together regularly (weekly!) and to let God form our spirituality, our Christian Knowledge and our Witness to Jesus Christ.  I think that would help to have a Holy and Christ-filled New Church Year.