Ordinary Time is the longest stretch of the Christian year, but it receives the least attention. Yet 'the ordinary' is the very essence of life. This wise guide shows how to live ordinary life in an extraordinary way, with biblical examples of how God breaks into everyday life.

Paula Gooder

Everyday God

 Also by the same author

 Everyday God

 Copyright information

 Dedication

 HOW TO READ THIS BOOK

Introduction

PART ONE

1. ON TURNING ASIDE

2. UNSUNG HEROES

PART TWO

3. AN EVERYDAY GOD

4. AN ORDINARY KINGDOM

PART THREE

5. THE CALL TO EXTRAORDINARINESS

6. GLIMPSING GLORY

EPILOGUE

Ordinary Time is the longest stretch of the Christian year, but it receives the least attention. Yet ‘the ordinary’ is the very essence of life. This wise guide shows how to live ordinary life in an extraordinary way, with biblical examples of how God breaks into everyday life.

The bestselling writer Paula Gooder continues her exploration of the Christian year, with its different seasons and moods, and the varying messages they convey. Here, she explores the longest period of the liturgical year, ordinary time - 33 weeks where no great dramas occur. We live in a culture that revels in the special, the extraordinary, the new, the unusual. This can relegate ordinary life to a bland 'in between-ness' as we look for the next excitement or novelty. This is a tendency that affects the church as much as wider culture as it seeks new ways of doing the familiar old things and reinventing itself. Yet, 'the ordinary' is the very essence of life. The point of special occasions is not to lift us out of humdrum existence but to embed us more powerfully in ordinary, day to day life. We need to learn how to live ordinary life in an extraordinary way. This book explores how to do this through reflections on 33 biblical texts reflecting on how God breaks into everyday life, transforming it into the most extraordinary existence possible.

"Dull and ordinary this is not!...Gooder's thought-provoking comments enable us to reconsider some of our more commonplace interpretations. Whilst focussing on the everyday, this book offers us inspirational glimpses of God's glory." -- Kate Horrix \* Magnet \*

Paula Gooder is an honorary lecturer at the University of Birmingham, Canon Theologian at Birmingham Cathedral, a Reader in the Church of England and a member of General Synod.

"Dull and ordinary this is not!...Gooder's thought-provoking comments enable us to reconsider some of our more commonplace interpretations. Whilst focussing on the everyday, this book offers us inspirational glimpses of God's glory."

\["Readers interested in exploring the concept of \\"ordinary time\\" in the liturgical calendar and seeking to find the extraordinary within their everyday faith.","It addresses the common tendency to devalue ordinary life in search of the special and encourages a deeper appreciation of the spiritual significance of everyday existence.","By reflecting on biblical texts, this book guides readers in discovering the extraordinary within the ordinary, enriching their faith and spiritual perspective."\]

"Living in Ordinary Time" by Paula Gooder explores the beauty of everyday faith and how God transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary.

Jean Margaret Hughes

I love Paula Gooder's books. she makes deep thoughts so readable.

Excellent

The Good Book Stall

Paula Gooder’s enthusiasm spills out from every page she writes and this book is no exception. That someone so exceptional recognises the importance of the ordinary, the everyday, is a great encouragement to the rest of us. What she can’t avoid however is that the world we occupy has been so spiritually degraded by human indifference that God’s activity stands out as special almost despite itself. In linking the examples here to ‘ordinary time’ she does give what is the longest season of the Church’s year a shape and purpose which it often seems to lack.  
Though it all inspires careful reading, for many of us I’m sure it’s the final ‘call to extraordinariness’ and Paula’s ‘glimpsing glory’ sections that will provoke us to the greatest thought and self-examination. As she unpacks Paul’s ‘Now you are the body of Christ’ and our need to carry ‘each other’s weaknesses’, we realise that there are things we know but so often don’t grasp. And as for ‘glory’, Paula edges us towards a recognition that it really can exist for us all.  
This is a book to be mulled over when the frenzy of festivals is calmed and we can see that broad and glorious sweep of God’s time which may one day be ordinary for us all. Do read this book simply because I’m sure it was written for you.

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Everyday God

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Ordinary Time is the longest stretch of the Christian year, but it receives the least attention. Yet ‘the ordinary’ is the very essence of life. This wise guide shows how to live ordinary life in an extraordinary way, with biblical examples of how God breaks into everyday life.

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