When Pamela McGrath tried out the Narrative Lectionary in her congregation, she found an innovative approach to preaching that connected her people with God’s story. She couldn’t help but share the good news.
“[Members of my church] feel like they are learning the gospel as a whole with its specific point of view and context. We are sold!” wrote McGrath, who serves as pastor at North Community Church UCC in Marshfield, Mass.
That’s what the Narrative Lectionary does—it opens up Scripture in new ways for preachers and listeners.
The Narrative Lectionary (NL) is a four-year cycle of readings for use in worship and preaching. The goal is to preach annually through the biblical narrative so that the lives of believers might be centered in God’s story.
Each year, a different Gospel account highlights distinctive aspects of the story of Jesus.
Pastor Chris Nelson reports that at Bethlehem Lutheran in Minneapolis, “the Narrative Lectionary has helped Bethlehem’s people know the stories and understand the connections in the Gospels like never before, and far beyond the Revised Common Lectionary’s ‘snippets.’ You get to see the whole painting, as it were, and not the ‘square inches of art.’”
The Narrative Lectionary was initiated by professors Rolf Jacobson and Craig Koester of Luther Seminary, in partnership with congregations across North America. The experiment began in 2010 and continues to grow.
“The Narrative Lectionary is growing fast—it is ecumenical and international now,” said Jacobson, citing participation by congregations in the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and elsewhere.
Weekly podcasts and text commentaries on the Narrative Lectionary readings are posted on WorkingPreacher.org, a free online resource provided by Luther Seminary.
The numbers indicate that it’s being used by increasingly more preachers and congregations. Traffic to Narrative Lectionary pages on Working Preacher has grown significantly in the past year,* including:
- a 55 percent increase in overall traffic, or more than 292,000 annual visits to Narrative Lectionary pages on Working Preacher
- a 97 percent increase in the number of visits from mobile devices
Consider joining the nearly 3,000 NL followers on the Narrative Lectionary Facebook group to participate in the conversation and share great preaching and worship insights.
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* Google Analytics statistics for March 25, 2014-March 25, 2015, as compared with the previous year.