What's the Common Lectionary?
The Lectionary is a series of texts arranged over a course of three calendar years designed to cover the major texts of the Bible in coordination with special Holy days and seasons.
Each week, four texts are suggested: an Old Testament text, a Psalm, a Gospel text, and New Testament text from outside the gospels. In our church, the pastor chooses one of these texts as the basis for the Sunday morning services and another for Wednesday evening. The reading from the Psalms almost always finds its way into the Sunday morning service as well.
This discipline has several advantages:
1. Since the lectionary is used across denominations, preaching from the Lectionary binds our congregation to other Christians around the world in a unified reading of God's word.
2. Since the lectionary strives to include all of the major texts of the Bible, pastors are challenged to preach from passages that they might ordinarily avoid, or on topics which are not necessarily their personal favorites. The lectionary disciplines the church to encounter the whole word of God.
3. Finally, many worship and teaching resources are keyed to the lectionary so that, for example, a Sunday school lesson for any given Sunday will be related to the teaching in the worship service.
