Lectionary?

     If you attend a worship service at Bethany Christian Church - Odessa, you will notice that on the front of our worship bulletins where we list the date of the service, we also include the date of the “Church” year. Many congregations do the same.

     Ever wonder why? Let me tell you…

     For a number of years, we have followed the “Revised Common Lectionary” as a guide and uniform approach to worship. The Lectionary is a 3 year cycle of Scripture readings that is used by many denominations. There are Scripture readings for each week and covers 80% of the Bible every three years. Each week includes a reading from the Old Testament, one of the Poetical books, the Gospels and the Epistles, the New Testament letters.

     We generally use one of the passages as our Call to Worship / Responsive Reading, another as our Scripture reading for the week and another (generally the Gospel) as the text for the sermon. Preaching from the lectionary is useful because it allows for a systematic study through a specific book from the Bible. It also prevents the passing over or ignoring passages that are difficult to understand and hard to teach. On occasion, pastors may set aside the Lectionary to preach on a special theme or timely topic, but overall many find it to be a good disciplined approach to preaching.

   What do you think? Let me know.