A New Season for Study Together

First off, I want to thank the people of Seneca Presbyterian Church for allowing me a week away for study. I realize it can be confusing to folk when the preacher is away but is not on vacation. Yet I am glad our Presbyterian traditions allow such things. It truly is a blessing!

 A major portion of my time this week has been spent with sermon planning for the remainder of the year. I had already decided to use a new tool in my preaching, and this week was a good time to get to know that tool better.  It's called the Narrative Lectionary. Weekly preaching is hard enough, but having the added burden of selecting a text for preaching can double up on the challenge. That's why so many preachers use THE Lectionary- namely the Revised Common Lectionary -  as their guide for preaching. A wealth of wonderful resources have been created that support preaching from those texts. They are so rich and deep that deviating from that lectionary is a bit dangerous. Yet it is a direction I've decided to take - at least for the coming year. Why?

Because the narrative lectionary is designed to see the big picture of the biblical story each year. It begins with the Old Testament in the fall, moves to focus on a Gospel between Christmas and Easter, and finishes up with texts from the early Church (Acts and the epistles) in the spring. It made perfect sense to me when I first saw it because that is precisely what I tried to do when I was an editor of children's curriculum. We all need a sense of the biblical story in sequence. We need to see just what God is up to in the world, and how that plan and purpose have been active since the moment of creation. If we can see that past, we can affirm the future - that God is not finished with us just yet. The God we have seen is the God we will continue to see, and the plan we have known is the plan we will continue to experience, until that moment when "the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ."

The Narrative Lectionary also has excellent resources for beginning the study of its texts each week. We plan to use them at Seneca Presbyterian. Each Wednesday evening, a group will gather to study the text for the following Sunday. They can prepare by listening to the weekly podcast and reading the weekly posting - both found at www.narrativelectionary.org. Then we'll study the text together - something of what I had hoped this blog would do, only this way will be face-to-face.

It's an experiment - but I hope it will nurture dialogue in preaching - not just monologue. Actually maybe it's trialogue - or even more. The text, the preacher, those who study with me - and the Spirit. You can see our unique schedule of study by clicking on the Narrative Lectionary page on this blog.

You can also read much more about the narrative lectionary on its web site. Click on the link in the right column in front of you. This resource comes from Luther Seminary and is part of the web site called Working Preacher.org. Thank you Lutherans for providing this terrific resource for the Church.