Ordinary Time

The liturgical calendar has its dramatic seasons — the candle-lit waiting of Advent, the austere journey of Lent, the great fifty days of Easter. And then, after Pentecost, the church steps into something quieter, longer, and arguably more demanding: Ordinary Time.

It spans the better part of the year. It carries no single dramatic narrative. And for progressive faith communities, it might be the most important season of them all.

Ordinary Time is the longest season of the Christian liturgical year — 23 to 28 weeks, depending on when Easter falls. It runs in two parts: a brief period after Epiphany, and a much longer stretch beginning the day after Pentecost and continuing through the Saturday before the First Sunday of Advent.

The name has nothing to do with being unremarkable. It comes from the Latin ordinalis — meaning "numbered" or "counted." These are simply the counted Sundays: the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, and so on. What makes this season distinctive isn't drama — it's duration. Ordinary Time is the long growing season, and its liturgical color is green: the color of life, growth, and things becoming.

For those accustomed to the high seasons of the church year, Ordinary Time can feel like a clearing. The incense has settled. The alleluias are no longer fortissimo. And in that clearing, the real work of discipleship begins.

There is a temptation — in churches as in culture — to prize the extraordinary over the ordinary. We remember the Advent candlelighting, the Easter sunrise service, the Pentecost flames. We preach the mountaintop moments.

But the majority of Christian life is not lived on mountaintops. It's lived in neighborhoods, hospital waiting rooms, school board meetings, and community gardens. It's lived in the rhythm of weekly worship, in the slow formation of character, in the patient, unglamorous work of showing up.

Ordinary Time is the season that says: this — right here — is holy ground.

The early church understood this. The "ordinary" seasons of gathered life were not filler between festivals. They were the context in which the Jesus movement actually grew — not through spectacular event, but through the sustained practice of a community learning to love its neighbors, share its resources, and embody a different kind of life.

That theology has never been more urgent. In a cultural moment that rewards speed, spectacle, and immediate impact, Ordinary Time invites the church to recommit to the long arc. Justice is not a campaign. Discipleship is not an event. The reign of God grows the way all things grow — slowly, steadily, and mostly out of view.

The Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) — used by Episcopal, Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, UCC, and Disciples of Christ congregations, among others — moves through the long season after Pentecost with remarkable depth.

In each year of the three-year cycle, the Gospel readings follow one of the Synoptics in semi-continuous sequence. Year A follows Matthew (including extended passages from the Sermon on the Mount). Year B follows Mark, with a detour into John 6. Year C follows Luke, with its particular attention to the poor, the outcast, and the reversal of social hierarchies. Running alongside the Gospels are semi-continuous readings from the Hebrew Bible — extended narrative sequences from Genesis, Exodus, and the prophets — and from the Pauline letters.

For progressive preachers, this is not just a reading schedule. It is an invitation. Ordinary Time is when your congregation spends weeks with the Beatitudes, with the feeding of the five thousand, with the Good Samaritan, with Amos and Micah and Isaiah. It is when the long arc of justice theology in scripture becomes available not as a proof text, but as a sustained theological conversation.

The season also carries structural flexibility that the high seasons don't. Ordinary Time is a container generous enough for a six-week series on economic justice, a summer journey through the Psalms, or a fall focus on racial reconciliation. There is room to go deep.

Ordinary Time is long enough to hold several distinct observances, each carrying particular significance for progressive communities:

1. Season of Creation (September 1 – October 4) Observed by a growing ecumenical coalition of mainline and progressive congregations, the Season of Creation invites the church to focus on environmental stewardship and the theology of creation. September 1 is the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation; October 4 is the Feast of St. Francis. The five weeks between them offer a natural container for eco-theological preaching, creation-care commitments, and outdoor worship. Learn how to integrate creation care into your ministry →

2. Kindomtide In some progressive and Methodist traditions, the final weeks of Ordinary Time before Advent are marked as Kindomtide — a term drawn from liberation theology that deliberately shifts the language from "Kingdom" (with its overtones of hierarchy and dominion) to "Kindom" (emphasizing kinship, community, and mutual belonging). These weeks, often spanning late August through late November, focus on the reign of God, the call to justice, and the church's vocation in the world. Explore the Kingdomtide/Kindomtide question →

3. World Communion Sunday (First Sunday of October) An ecumenical observance celebrating the unity of the global church across all traditions, denominations, and cultures. For progressive communities committed to radical welcome and global solidarity, this Sunday is a natural focal point.

4. Reformation Sunday (Last Sunday of October) Observed in many Protestant traditions to mark the anniversary of the Reformation. Progressive communities often use this Sunday to reflect on the church's ongoing reformation — what it means to be, in the Reformed tradition's language, semper reformanda: always reforming.

5. All Saints Sunday (First Sunday of November) A commemoration of the faithful who have gone before. Many progressive communities have reclaimed All Saints as a practice of grateful memory, naming those lost in the past year and celebrating the great cloud of witnesses from whom we inherit our faith.

6. Christ the King / Reign of Christ Sunday (Last Sunday before Advent) The final Sunday of the liturgical year. Rather than reading "Christ the King" through the lens of triumphalism, progressive communities often use this Sunday to ask what it looks like when love — not power — reigns.

Ordinary Time is not the church's intermission. For communities rooted in progressive theology — communities that take seriously the call to welcome the marginalized, care for creation, and pursue justice as an act of worship — it is a season of particular gifts:

1. It sanctifies the ordinary work of ministry. Progressive Christianity has always pushed back against a faith that exists only in the sanctuary or the high seasons. Ordinary Time liturgically validates what progressive communities already believe: that the work of the church happens in the neighborhood, not just in the nave. The season says, plainly: your Tuesday is as sacred as your Sunday.

2. It provides room for the full sweep of prophetic scripture. The lectionary during Ordinary Time doesn't give you a verse or a theme — it gives you sustained books, sustained arguments, sustained relationships with text. That is the kind of theological depth that forms a justice-seeking community over time, not a weekend.

3. It resists the tyranny of urgency. One of the most countercultural things a church can do in the current moment is refuse to be urgent about everything. Ordinary Time is structurally slow. It doesn't ask what went viral this week. It asks what is growing. For communities doing the long, patient work of social change, that rhythm is not a limitation — it's a spiritual practice.

4. It keeps the focus on the gathered community itself. The high seasons of the church year are often outward-facing — reaching people, welcoming newcomers, presenting the faith. Ordinary Time turns the community inward in the best sense: deepening relationships, forming disciples, building the internal life that makes sustainable mission possible.

How does Ordinary Time fit into the liturgical year overall? The Christian liturgical year has two major cycles. The Christmas cycle runs from Advent through Epiphany. The Easter cycle runs from Ash Wednesday through Pentecost. Ordinary Time fills the space around and between these cycles — a brief period after Epiphany (usually 4–8 weeks) and the long season after Pentecost (23–28 weeks). Together, the two periods of Ordinary Time account for more than half the liturgical year.

Does my church have to observe Ordinary Time? No. Many thriving progressive churches organize their year thematically rather than liturgically, and do it beautifully. But more and more non-traditional and emergent communities are finding value in the rhythm of the church year as a counter-cultural alternative to the commercial calendar — a way of ordering time around the story of Jesus rather than the story of the market. Ordinary Time, in particular, offers a framework for the kind of sustained, unhurried formation that is difficult to achieve through themed series alone.

What is the difference between Ordinary Time and Kindomtide? Kindomtide is a subset of Ordinary Time — a designation used in some progressive and Methodist traditions for the final 13–14 weeks of the season (roughly late August through late November). Ordinary Time is the whole long season. Kindomtide is a lens for its final movement, with a particular focus on the reign of God, justice, and the community's vocation in the world. The two are not in competition — Kindomtide is Ordinary Time with an intentional thematic frame applied to its final weeks.

What worship colors are used during Ordinary Time? Green is the standard liturgical color for the whole of Ordinary Time, signaling growth, life, and ongoing formation. White or gold may be used on specific feast days that fall within the season (such as All Saints Day or Trinity Sunday). Some traditions use red during Pentecost season before transitioning to green.

What are the best sermon themes for Ordinary Time? The season's length is its superpower: it can hold sustained series that the tighter seasons can't. Themes that work especially well for progressive communities include: the Sermon on the Mount (Year A), the parables of radical reversal (Year C), creation care and environmental justice (anchored by the Season of Creation), racial reconciliation, LGBTQ+ inclusion, economic justice, and the integration of contemplation and action. See our full list of sermon ideas for Ordinary Time →

Here is what the season ultimately offers: a theology of enough.

In a culture addicted to the exceptional — to the viral moment, the record-breaking campaign, the sweeping transformation — Ordinary Time is a countercultural act. It insists that the slow accumulation of faithful presence, patient relationship, and weekly gathered worship is not a lesser form of Christian life. It is the form.

The green of Ordinary Time is the green of a garden in July — not showy, not dramatic, but undeniably alive. Things are growing that you planted months ago. Things are taking root that you may not see for years. The work is happening whether or not it is spectacular.

For progressive communities doing the steady, crucial work of embodying an inclusive and justice-seeking faith — showing up week after week, welcoming the stranger again and again, tending to the earth and to each other — Ordinary Time is not a season to endure between the important ones.

It is the season you were made for.