Week 1: Introduction — Loving Ordinary Time

1.Warren opens with an honest confession that her days often feel cluttered, distracted, and far from holy. How did her description of an ordinary day land on you? Did you recognize yourself in it?

2.She draws on the Anglican liturgical calendar's season of 'Ordinary Time' as a metaphor for the whole of daily life. What does the word 'ordinary' actually mean in that context, and why does recovering its original sense matter for the book's argument?

3.Warren distinguishes between 'big' spiritual moments — retreats, revivals, mountaintop experiences — and the slow formation that happens through repeated daily practice. Have you tended to think of spiritual growth primarily in terms of dramatic moments? What has that assumption cost you?

4.She leans on philosopher James K. A. Smith's argument that we are not primarily thinking beings but *desiring* beings — that our habits and liturgies (not just our beliefs) shape what we love. What is your initial reaction to that claim? Does it feel liberating, unsettling, or both?

5.Warren is an Anglican priest, and she frames the Sunday liturgy as the key that unlocks the meaning of daily life. Even if your church tradition is different, what regular practices or rhythms in your faith community might function in a similar way?

6.What is the 'liturgy of the ordinary' that Warren is proposing? In your own words, summarize her central thesis as clearly as you can.

7.How does Warren's vision connect to Romans 12:1–2 — offering our bodies as living sacrifices and being transformed by the renewing of our minds? Where do the daily habits of the body fit into that kind of transformation?