I've been preparing some material about preaching systematically through the Scriptures for an upcoming seminar. This has been my practice in congregational ministry but it's been really good for me to step back and break down the factors that need to be considered and the challenges and implications of working this way.
It strikes me that while lots of evangelical Anglican churches are committed to biblical preaching, they're not always as practically committed to preaching their way through whole books of the Bible, nor to preaching a good balance of all the parts of the Bible. (How many churches can I think of that have preached through all of Ezekiel lately... ? To be honest, how many churches can I think of that have preached through all of John's Gospel lately!) But if we're meant to feed the flock with every word then we've got to tackle this.
Of course, traditionally, Anglicans have followed a lectionary - and many still do. And while it can be very easy to criticise set lectionaries (because they usually skip lots of texts), I do wonder if they actually do a better overall job of systematically bringing the whole Bible to congregations than we often do if we don't use them.
I would be very keen to see a lectionary that gave the whole Scripture divided into sensible blocks and mapped out in some sensible sort of way to account for the seasons of the year and so on. Anybody know of such a thing?
Thoughts on Theology-in-Practice for Anglicans and Episcopalians - plus some other stuff.
There was a big discussion on this after a FB post by Megan Curlis-Gibson a while back. Couldn't find it, but I seem to remember Matt Campbell had developed or was using a lectionary which tried to do this better than the current one.
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ReplyDeleteIt is a tough one. I have always tried to teach through each book in its natural divisions (not always coterminal with chapters) then looked for natural clusters to shape series around.
Eg. I did series on John 1-3, 4-5:18, 5:19-6:71, 7&8, 9&10, 11&12, 13&14 over a two and half year period. Each series was separately branded and had between 3 and 7 sermons. Over the same period I was working through a similar program with Exodus and then interspersing with NT letters, shorter OT works and topical series.
This way, each sermon and each series stood in its own right, but they also all added up to a thorough overall study of the longer books which was great for committed regular members.
But it takes a lot of work and planning to do this - and a vision for a long-term pulpit ministry. They don't teach you this stuff at college!
*clusters = larger sections