Book Review: The Circle of Seasons

Kinberlee Conway Ireton’s book on the church calendar is a refreshingly practical look at how ancient practices can find new relevance within our contemporary way of life. Where many books on the church calendar are nostalgically romantic portrayals of tradition Conway Ireton allows the church calendar to breathe freely in our modern way of doing things, and thereby giving the ebb and flow of the church calendar particular meaning (and sometimes new meaning) in the lives of modern believers.

Conway Ireton uses the metaphor of the circle to emphasize the unity of purpose and narrative within the church calendar, that when speaking of the last week in the church calendar, the Feast of Christ the King, the body of Christ has:

“come full circle. We end the church year procliaming and celebrating Christ’s second coming. The next week, a new church year begins, and we circle into Advent again, living into our longing for God to come to us, crying with generation of God’s people: Come, Lord Jesus!” (124)

The strongest points of Conway Ireton’s book are the “Living the Season” sections that follow each chapter where she shares practical ways to celebrate the seasons of the church calendar within the home. A belief that church does not stop once you walk out of the pew infuses Conway Ireton’s thesis that we can meet God in the church year, and she presents the best way to do this is a full re-orientation of our families’s lives around the church calendar, that the story of God becomes the narrative of the family (and church) and not the story of the world.

The “Living the Season” sections will be an invaluable benefit for persons learning about the church calendar for the first time, as Conway Ireton gives ideas, crafts, and projects to do with the family that will help all recount and know the full story of God, the one that goes from birth to the coming kingdom.

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The Circle of Seasons: Meeting God in the Church Year
Kimberlee Conway Ireton
InterVarsity Press