Welcome!
All the Household is a project devoted to exploring how the rhythms of the Church Year shape Christian life—day by day, season by season, and across homes, schools, churches, and communities.
What began for us as a small effort to gather resources for both of our households’ observance of the feasts and festivals of the Lutheran Church Year has now grown into a much wider conversation. Today, pastors, congregations, families, students, and Christians from various traditions have drawn on these materials to learn how the Church’s calendar forms faith and piety.
At its heart, All the Household came into existence for a simple purpose: to help all of us more fully live into the time, traditions, and gifts of the Church and her year ordered around Christ.
Why the Church Year?
We know from experience that a Christ-centered life does not happen by accident. It is formed through effort, attention, and repeated practice that, over time, helps foster faith and understanding of our Lord. Thankfully, the Church offers rhythms and practices through which such formation can take root. The Church Year, in particular, provides traditions that order our days around the life of Christ and teach us about him—His incarnation, death, resurrection, ascension, and continuing presence among His people.
Yet where can we go to learn about these rhythms and practices? How do we embrace them when many of us weren’t taught them, even if we grew up in faithful households and congregations?
The All the Household project seeks to answer these questions, at least in part. We know that these traditions can be difficult to locate because they are scattered across books, calendars, hymns, and inherited customs. Even when one does have a basic understanding of these traditions, there is often little guidance for how they might be practiced amid busy schedules, modern contexts, and ordinary responsibilities.
Yet, we have also rediscovered that tried and true understanding Christians have upheld for centuries: the idea that faith formation happens not only within four walls of a church building but also in our everyday life. It happens in the midst of our ordinary vocations, relationships, and routines. The home, in particular, is where the Church’s year takes root and where Christ’s gifts are received again and again in ordinary time.
All the Household seeks to make these rhythms more visible, accessible, and livable, inviting Christians to inhabit the Church Year with confidence and joy.
What You’ll Find Here
Over time, our work has taken many forms. What began as a website devoted to Lutheran liturgical living has grown into essays, guides, newsletters, interviews, artistic collaborations, and curated resources.
Across this site, you’ll find:
- Introduction posts on the feasts, festivals, and commemorations of the Church Year
- “Tradition” and “customs” posts that offer practical ways to observe the Church Year in daily life, often drawing on practices handed down across the history of the Church
- Reflections on the historical and theological context of these days within the Lutheran tradition
- Conversations with Christians living these rhythms in diverse vocations and contexts
- Various resources for individuals, families, congregations, and educators
Whether you are newly curious about the Church Year or long formed by it, we hope this space offers both clarity and encouragement for you!
Distinctively Lutheran but Hospitable to Many
All the Household is rooted in the theology and liturgical life of the Lutheran Church, especially as expressed in the Lutheran Confessions and the liturgical life of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.
At the same time, we have been encouraged to discover that our work resonates beyond Lutheran circles. Ultimately, our aim is to articulate the richness of Lutheran liturgical life in a way that is faithful, intelligible, and generous to all who are interested in this journey.
Why “All the Household”?
The name All the Household comes from a line at the end of the Table of Duties in Luther’s Small Catechism:
“Let each his lesson learn with care,
and all the household well shall fare.”
In our estimation, this little rhyme perfectly captures one of the essential truths of Christian formation: faith is learned not in isolation but within shared communities.
References:
1. F. Bente, ed., Concordia Triglotta (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1921) 563.
Images:
1. Grace Before Meal, Franz von Defregger, England, 1875
2. Luther im Kreise seiner Familie musizierend, Gustav Spangenberg, Germany, 1875