Preaching Lessons: The Narrative Lectionary

The session on the Narrative Lectionary was more of  sales pitch than anything. And I had to sit outside of the room for this session, as there was a massive overflow of people present. So, I'm just going to link the website where you can get lots more information and resources: www.narrativelectionary.org. For me, narrative lectionary makes so much sense. Mostly because the Revised Common Lectionary makes no sense to me, and I like having a structure to work within when I preach.

But here were a couple of tips gleaned from the session:

• If you're going to use the Narrative Lectionary, give your congregation warning and buy-in. Don't just change over. Tell them why you are going to do it and what you hope the entire church will get out of it by doing so. Then, when you finish the program year, give them the chance to share about their experiences and learnings. 
• If you can't or don't want to start in September, a good time to pick it up is after Christmas, when you're already moving into the New Testament readings anyway. It can make for a smoother transition.

There was also a really great metaphor for preaching--Legos. Legos used to be a free-form toy, where imagination and invention were the keys and legos were just the means of getting there. Now, many Lego sets come with directions and instructions for building specific forms. In preaching, we don't want to be telling people what to build. Instead, we want to give them the tools to be able to connect the biblical text to their own lives and to announce the hope that is present in the text. From there, people make their own connections in a living, breathing faith.