(ABP) — It's Saturday night. Do you know where your pastor is?
A safe guess might be “in a study, frantically developing the next day's sermon.”
The pastor's task is to “carefully divide the word of truth,” but many pulpiteers question to which text they should apply the maxim.
The solution for some Baptist pastors is an important component of the liturgical toolbox: the lectionary, a centuries-old cycle of Scripture readings assigned to each Sunday of the year.
In general, a lectionary is any collection of Scripture readings appointed for Christian or Jewish worship on a given day or occasion. Numerous lectionaries have been developed over the centuries. Today, most Christian churches in the Protestant tradition use the Revised Common Lectionary, which includes readings each Sunday from the Psalms, the Old Testament, the Epistles, and the Gospels. The readings are organized into a three-year cycle.
“I preach from texts I would never preach from if I did not follow the lectionary,” said Chuck Warnock, pastor of Chatham (Va.) Baptist Church. “Sometimes that poses a challenge. Sometimes I think the texts are not that great. But I dig into them and have been blessed by that discipline.”
That rationale for using the lectionary was echoed by Mike Clingenpeel, pastor of River Road Church, Baptist, in Richmond, Va., and David Washburn, pastor of First Baptist Church in Waynesboro, Va.
“It guarantees I don't preach my pet themes,” said Clingenpeel. “If I was trying to figure out on Monday or Tuesday what my sermon will be the following Sunday, I would preach out of the overflow of how I feel. The lectionary sort of channels me away from my own subjective feelings. Besides, it balances what the congregation hears.”
Washburn said tackling difficult texts “makes me cultivate a different style of preaching.”
“This year, when I sat down with our associate ministers to talk about Advent, we intentionally moved away from the Gospel texts and are focusing on the selections from Isaiah,” said Washburn, adding that it will help his congregation “move away from the familiarity of Advent passages” and look at the season in a different way.
“That helps me grow as a preacher and teacher, and we certainly hope that will spill over into the congregation.”
Retaining flexibility to respond to events in the congregation or community keeps some pastors from rigidly adhering to the appointed readings.
“I don't use it the entire year because I like to be able to focus on what is taking place in the life of our church,” said Washburn, who usually follows the lectionary only during Advent and Lent. “I always ask if there are issues specifically related to ministries in our church or events in the community to speak to during worship.”
Kyle Reese, pastor of Hendricks Avenue Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla., typically follows the lectionary in preaching, but he noted “the ebb and flow of life” dictates times when he needs to depart from the prescribed texts.
Even so, he noted many times when he initially thought circumstances would require him to find a text to address a specific situation, but he was surprised to discover the lectionary reading fit perfectly.
Bill Shiell, pastor of First Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tenn., agreed. He uses the lectionary and begins sermon preparation four months in advance.
Even on the Sunday after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, he discovered the lectionary Scriptures provided an appropriate text for the occasion.
“Planning — no matter how far in advance — has always worked,” he said.
Other reasons cited by pastors for using the lectionary include:
— It connects local churches with the global Christian community. “Millions of churches around the world read the same passages each Sunday,” Warnock said. “I like being a part of the global church as it gathers for worship in thousands of different expressions, united by common scripture.”
“It puts me in touch with the larger church and other denominations,” Clingenpeel said. “Often I find that when I preach on a particular text, someone will come to me and say, ‘My preacher at the Presbyterian church preached the same text,' and it's a point of contact with that person.”
It unites the Christian family at-large by providing a common focus, Reese added.
“Entering into the broader community of the church is invaluable,” he said. “That particularly resonates with the 20-something and younger crowd who want to be a part of something bigger than themselves.”
— It can immerse worship services in Scripture. “I think public reading of Scripture has great value, and we use the lectionary as part of worship,” said Clingenpeel. “Often I adapt the Psalm as a call to worship or call to prayer or as some other liturgical element in the service, to which the people respond. We try to use the texts pretty extensively, so that there's more than just a nominal reading of Scripture in worship.”
“We are trying to do more reading the Bible in our church,” Warnock said. “The readings each Sunday — from the Old Testament, Psalms, Gospels, Epistles — work together and weave a tapestry of witness and story that is majestic.”
— It makes selection of texts easier each Sunday, while offering almost unlimited texts over the long haul. “So, if you want to preach through the Bible, use the lectionary as your guide. Somebody else figured it out for you,” Warnock said. “Saves you a lot of time, plus a lot of thought, prayer and study was invested in choosing these texts. … There is more to choose from than you can ever cover.”
Because there are four readings appointed for each Sunday over three years, “theoretically you could preach for 12 years without ever repeating a text,” said Clingenpeel, who, after serving his current church four years, has preached through the cycle once.
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— This story is the second of a three-part series on preaching. Additional reporting by Ken Camp of the Texas Baptist Standard.