Mennonite Churches

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Mennonites followed the Christian year while most American Protestants did not. In the twentieth century, with the transition to use of English in worship, Mennonites dropped the Christian year, which now seemed formalistic and restrictive. Since 1980, many Mennonites have discovered the Christian year as a means of revitalizing worship, though on the whole its use remains irregular. Prior to 1980, Mennonite churches in twentieth-century America planned and conducted worship with little reference to the Christian year. Apart from the major Christian festivals of Christmas and Easter, neither the days and season of the liturgical calendar nor the lectionary exerted much influence on their patterns of worship. Good Friday was observed in some congregations and Pentecost was often noted, but among many groups, services proper to the seasons were unknown. Suspicion of Symbol and Ritual Generally, Mennonites considered the Christian year …