Meaty Monday: Lectionary vs. Sermon Series

Bosco, I'd agree, that sermon series lend themselves to teaching, which is primarily why I have done them in the past and will probably continue to do them on occasion in the future.

I've done them to teach/preach on such things as the apostle's creed, prayer, discipleship, the spiritual life, etc.

Maybe there is a distinction between teaching and preaching - I realise there is overlap. There is value in a series - but with the lectionary one could preach on one of the three readings or the psalm. There's 12 years of preaching right there before you got back to a text! And you are part of a much greater community ecumenically, internationally.

Blessings

Bosco Peters
www.liturgy.co.nz

Lectionary topics definitely make it easier to find children sermons online. :-)

Hi Jim-
I was once in on a conversation with friends of mine, a homiletics professor and an Old Testament professor, both at the same local seminary, who were discussing the "freedom" of preaching the lectionary. No need to construct a series around some topic, no need to start a given week finding the scripture passage, no need to find scripture that matches your conclusion. The homiletics professor was my pastor a while back and I went back through the old sermons one time and in five years, one and 2/3 lectionary cycles, never the same sermon twice and only a very few repeat passages.
This in contrast to my current pastor who has certain "pet" passages. I checked my records and we get these preached on every 1.5-2.5 years or so. With encouragement from a colleague he is now preaching the lectionary much more. Now if we could get some more variation in the hymns, but that is another issue.
Steve