Preaching & Reading the Lectionary

A Three-Dimensional Approach
to the Liturgical Year

The wide-angle look at the Revised Common Lectionary will help preachers keep the whole in view even while focusing on the parts as they plan their preaching season by season.

The Introduction provides an overview of the Revised Common Lectionary in terms of the three dimensions of its cumulative nature: the relation of the various lections assigned to any given Sunday (width), the relation of lections from week to week (height), and the relation of reading from year to year (depth).

Download the Introduction HERE. 

The main body of the book offers a variety of potential cumulative strategies for preaching through each of the liturgical seasons of the three-year cycle of the Revised Common Lectionary. These homiletical strategies deal primarily (but not solely) with the height dimension of how the flow of readings week to week presents an opportunity for preaching cumulatively Sunday to Sunday. The list of strategies is not meant to be exhaustive but rather suggestive.

Download the entire book HERE. 

The free download of this book complements the cumulative preaching strategies by offering introductions for reading each lection during worship throughout the three-year lectionary cycle. The free download includes brief introductions for each liturgical year, season, and individual lection. Copyright permission is granted for use and/or adaptation of the introductions for worship and free congregational publications (e.g., bulletins and newsletters). The introductions have been written in such a way as to help the congregation view the larger biblical, liturgical, and lectionary contexts and connections of each individual reading, Sunday, and liturgical season.

Download Year A HERE.

Download Year B HERE.

Download Year C HERE.

How to use the introductions? Download Suggestions for Using Introductions to Lections HERE.