Dylan's Lectionary Blog
Okay, admittedly this particular post is mostly for fellow practitioners of the craft. For all the lonely preachers out there. Who knows, maybe some others will be interested, if only to find out what in the heck preachers do to prepare sermons every week.
What is a Lectionary? In simple terms, it is a calendar, or schedule of scripture readings used by churches who choose to follow the traditional church calendar. There is a Catholic Lectionary, an Episcopal Lectionary, and a Common Lectionary for those who are neither Catholic nor Episcopalian but wish to follow some sort of preaching and worship calendar. The lectionary is divided into a three year cycle.
This is a generalization, but mainline protestants tend to follow the lectionary, while evangelical churches tend not to. I, for example, am one of only a handful of Baptists in my area who use a lectionary calendar for worship. I like using the Common Lectionary because it helps me stay balanced in my use of scripture, and it prevents me from wasting any of my creative energy in trying to decide what text to preach from each week.
More about lectionaries View the Common Lectionary
If you are a preacher and you use the lectionary, I want to point you to an interesting and helpful resource. Sarah Dylan Breuer is an Episcopalian, a pastor, and a Ph.D. candidate who writes wonderful meditations on the gospel text for each week and posts them on a weblog dedicated to the lectionary. Sometimes I drop in and offer my own thoughts on the passage based on my sermon preparation that week. I've been remiss in doing this lately, but plan to start again. If a number of ministers were dropping by, we could start some pretty good sermon conversations using her comments. One of the advantages of the lectionary is that it allows ministers to share the preaching journey and to engage in conversation about different texts.
I think you'll enjoy getting to know Dylan, and I know you'll enjoy her thoughts on the gospel readings for the week.
peace,
rlp
11:05:15 AM 
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