AJ offered a helpful corrective in a comment on my post on Parish Councils / Vestries. Therefore I've gone back and corrected it and also fixed my post on some of the other formal roles in local Anglican churches.
Hopefully these are more correct and more useful now.
Thoughts on Theology-in-Practice for Anglicans and Episcopalians - plus some other stuff.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
The Whole Counsel of God
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?
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?
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