I’ve been thinking about the lectionary this Easter holiday.
It’s still a holiday here in Canada, and I’ll be taking most of the day to relax and recuperate from a cold, but I thought I’d write some thoughts I had after all the services at my Anglican church this weekend.
For those who don’t know, I grew up in the evangelical church, and attended one, with a brief hiatus in an evangelical Anglican church in Toronto thirty years ago, until COVID. When churches reopened we decided to start attending a local Anglican church, and we really love it, and both Keith and I will probably work towards becoming wardens soon.
But until I started to go, I didn’t know the word “lectionary” really. And that word has made quite a difference and explains why we made the switch.
We’re going to be talking this week about how to find a healthy church, both on the podcast on Thursday and with a big post on Wednesday. But I’d like to tell you a bit of my story and then what I noticed this weekend.
I left the evangelical church for all kinds of reasons.
It was right when we were writing The Great Sex Rescue, and realizing how deeply entrenched the evangelical church was, and how complicit the church was, in teachings that hurt women. I was at the point where I was quite depressed, and going to church made it worse.
One of the things that was so hard was going to church with a big worship band, and knowing the expectation was that you would get this emotional high or feel God during the service, and if you didn’t, then you hadn’t emptied yourself enough and weren’t concentrating on God enough.
But the problem was I was seriously burnt out, and much of the cause of my burnout was the church. I needed to go to a place where the expectation at each service was not that I would get into an emotional state where I felt wonderful about God, but that instead truth would be spoken over me that didn’t change, despite my emotions. That truth was truth, and I needed a priest to just declare it to me.
So we started going to the Anglican church.
I was totally taken aback by how much Scripture is in each service.
In the evangelical churches I had been to, there was often a Scripture reading, but not always. Sometimes the pastor just read the passage he was preaching on himself, and sometimes someone else would read the passage. But it was usually only one passage, and it usually related to the sermon series that the pastor had chosen to give.
In contrast, churches based on the lectionary (of which the Anglican church is one, but not the only one), cycle through the Bible on a three year basis–Year A, Year B, and Year C. Matthew, Mark and Luke are each given their own year, while John is in all the years. The readings follow the liturgical calendar (Christmas, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, etc.), and the purpose is to help people hear the majority of the Bible over that time.
Each service has an Old Testament reading, a Psalm, a New Testament reading, and the Gospel reading. (Weekdays also have their own readings that you presumably do at home).
On any given Sunday, millions of Christians the world over are hearing the same readings. Churches can’t skip the hard passages.
But it’s not just the readings. The prayers usually have lots of phrases of Scripture in them, and the leadup to Communion has lots of Scripture. As one familiar with Scripture, you hear it everywhere.
Then our priest (I presume not every Anglican priest does this, but ours does) always focuses the short sermon on the gospel reading, sometimes incorporating the other readings. So the focus of the service is entirely on the Scripture for the day, with an emphasis on the life of Christ.
One of the things that I often found in evangelical churches is that the pastor might spend months in one of the epistles, and you can go through months without ever hearing the words of Christ.
This Easter was especially filled with Scripture.
The Good Friday service was the 14 stations of the cross, and at each station there was tons of Scripture, with Isaiah woven in with the gospel narratives woven in with the epistles. It was truly beautiful. And Easter, again, was filled with readings.
I remember being told that the mainline churches didn’t really believe the Bible.
And yet I have heard more Bible in the Anglican church than I ever did in an evangelical one. This weekend alone I likely heard more read than I did in months of my evangelical churches!
It’s interesting too that the readings are differentiated. People sit for the Old Testament, Psalm, and epistle, but when the gospel is read our priest comes down to the floor among the people, and everyone stands. Just as Jesus came down to us, so the gospel is read among the people. There’s a differentiation made between the words of Christ and the rest of Scripture. I find that refreshing, because I’ve been saying that we interpret Scripture through Jesus. He is the Word, and we understand God by looking at Him. Too often we look at Old Testament stories first and read those onto Jesus, and we’ve got it backwards. I feel like in evangelical spaces we’ve lost the idea of the “red letter text”, where the gospels really are the central focus. In many churches and practices, Paul has become the central focus.
What hit me this weekend was why the mainline churches use so much Scripture
It’s a different approach to why we come to church. Centuries ago the idea of a parish was that the parish priest was there to serve the people in the parish–it didn’t matter if they came to church or not. The parish was the priest’s responsibility. And if you were going to go to church, you went to the parish church (at least until all the different denominations were formed!). Especially in the days before cars, church had to be close to you and focused on the community.
When people actually came through your doors, then, you wanted to make the most of it and make sure they heard all the Scripture they could. The service revolved around educating people about the basics, because you wouldn’t assume people had access to a Bible at any other time, or, if they did have access, that they would read it.
The evangelical church, on the other hand, was formed in contrast to mainline churches. People who attended evangelical churches did so because they were devoted to God already. They went because they wanted more than “rote”. They wanted meat. The expectation was that they already knew the “rote” stuff, and so church was supposed to be more like a university class where you learned the extra. You didn’t need to do the basics anymore, or read as much Scripture, because the expectation was that people would be doing devotions at home.
And so the feel is different. In the Anglican church, people are glad you’re there and they don’t expect you to have prepared or know stuff already. In the evangelical church, there’s this sense of failure if you haven’t been doing devotions all week (that’s my biased experience, and I understand that).
I know I’m generalizing here.
Of course there are horrid people in mainline churches, and of course there are accessible evangelical churches that welcome newcomers and don’t lead with guilt.
I’m just trying to paint the broad brush of the differences I’ve seen, after spending 50 years in Baptist and Alliance spaces (with some other churches thrown in), and then 5 years in an Anglican space.
There are many things I miss about the evangelical church.
I miss the community. I miss friends my own age whose lives really do revolve around what can we do for God and how can we change the world. I miss some of the worship (not always, but sometimes). I miss in-depth Bible studies.
But I’m peaceful here. I’m calm. And I feel, for now, like the emphasis is right.
I would love to find a blend of the Scripture knowledge from the evangelical church, and the liturgy, lectionary, and reverence of the mainline church. But for now, we’re happy where we are.
I was just overwhelmed by all the Scripture this weekend, and I appreciated it, and I wanted to share that with you all! And now I shall continue my Easter Monday!
What has your experience been with Scripture in church? Let’s talk in the comments!
This is so spot on. I come at this with the perspective of having grown up American evangelical and then ironically got “saved” by Canadian mainline Christians as an adult. Some evangelical churches I’ve attended make an honest effort to cover the breadth of Scripture, many just focus on the parts that support the pastor’s personal goals or leanings.
I am getting ready to chronicle the story of the (evangelical) church that gave me post-traumatic church disorder, and have been spending lots of time recently on their website for documentation purposes. For all their bragging (I have the receipts) about how much more they “preach the Bible” than other churches, the numbers point out their priorities. Since 2013, 234 sermons from Paul alone, only 29 from the Pentateuch, only 19 from the major prophets, and they’ve been focused exclusively on a single gospel for two-and-a-half YEARS now. They’re loosing sight of the grandeur of the forest by detailing the leaf structure of one or two trees.
It used to make me mad. Now it makes me grieve.
Grief is such a prevalent emotion right now among people who used to attend evangelical churches! It’s hard to walk through it.
“I feel like in evangelical spaces we’ve lost the idea of the “red letter text”, where the gospels really are the central focus. In many churches and practices, Paul has become the central focus.” No truer words spoken to me today. Paul did the Lord’s work, but that did not make him Lord. I have heard so much about what Paul says in the last 3 years of attending Baptist churches before I left altogether that by doing my own deep-dive on Jesus and His Words, I am free at last. This year, I am reading through the New Testament and highlighting in red pencil every reference made to women and all the stories about women. I must say, today’s Baptist pastors should be ashamed. I am on my second red pencil and started Romans this month. Oh! How Jesus LOVED women!
How lovely to hear that you’ve found a church that gives you peace and greater biblical exposure! It’s refreshing to hear that a change up is helping AND that you’re leaving the future open to need something different down the road, as well as ideals and goals for your corporate worship experiences.
I also grew up in the Baptist tradition, though my mom was raised Catholic so I was aware of the differences in styles. There was huge pressure to read through the Bible in 1 year, so I did many years using a liturgical plan widely available that incorporates OT, Psalms & NT. After a break of several years, I decided to read through the Bible in 1 year again with my kids – but this time read it in chronological order. For us, this made a tremendous difference! Context was preserved and we had so much debate and soul-searching as a result. It took longer than 1 year, but we were able begin examining the load of crap we’d been served at church after church. Most of us can’t set foot in a church now that the blinders are off, but we’re finding new ways to build community.
I love the practice of reading the Bible chronologically! It’s so revealing.
Jesus did love women! And Paul did too, actually, that just gets missed. I love Romans 16. It’s one of my favourite chapters just to see how Paul treats the women he worked with. I don’t think many Baptist pastors could have written a greeting like Paul did!
(Also, I’ve gone through periods in my life where I could only read the gospels. It was very freeing.)
Since I live in the US, I am not familiar with the Anglican Church, but from what you have described, it sounds like you are describing what I’ve witnessed in Catholic, Episcopalian, and Lutheran services as they have their readings from both Old and New Testaments and the readings from Jesus. Currently, I attend a Nazarene Church which I enjoy because they allow women to be pastors and the congregation is small.
Throughout my 20+ years of attending nondenominational, charismatic, and Assemblies of God churches, I have found that the pastors will have a key scripture but sometimes spend a lot of time rambling and not focus on that scripture. There’s also times when I don’t hear anything about Jesus. Shouldn’t the reason we attend church is because of Jesus? He’s the reason for the Church.
“describing what I’ve witnessed in Catholic, Episcopalian, and Lutheran services”
All three of which are WESTERN RITE LITURGICAL CHURCHES.
(Episcopalians were a political split from the Anglicans in 1776, as the Anglicans were a political split from the Catholics by Henry VIII.)
With a long historical trace and Institutional Memory (the hard way) of which Fresh New Ideas are really Old Mistakes.
But Fundagelicals HAVE to keep going back to Year Zero (33 AD) and Reinventing the Wheel over and over and over. The Hard Way.
Just like the Wahabi (latest of the periodic Pure Original Islam revival movements) have to keep going back to Year One of the Hegira/As It Was In The Days of The Prophet.
I spent about 40 years in assorted evangelical protestant churches and then in 2003 was part of a church plant that was liturgical (we have spent the last 2 years transitioning to Anglican Church In North America but Sunday service didn’t change very much and we always used the lectionary). It is very strange to try to convince an angry ex-Roman Catholic at work who thinks that that she never heard the gospel until she got saved in a protestant church that she heard it at mass. She heard it every Sunday, far more scripture than most Protestant churches, but the teaching might have had problems….
Always interesting to watch what happens when people discover the Canterbury trail. The formation of faith is very different in ways that ‘Bible’ congregations cannot grasp or know how or why it occurs. The very real and profoundly important difference between the undoubted faith which Christians hold — and the way and the spirit in which that faith is held.
The lectionary is but one, significant factor in this process. Consider but a few of the ways it does this.
Beyond creating , the lectionary quietly yet powerfully introduces the laity to a stable, theological system to the laity.
Systematic reading shapes theology
A good lectionary does far more than deliver churches from the tyranny of the preacher’s textual whims or create Biblically literate congregations. Systematic reading shapes a more complete, coherent and reliable theological understanding. And it quietly yet powerfully introduces the laity to a stable, theological system.
Difficult and neglected passages [imprecatory Psalms, challenges to wealth, power, privilege, social injustice and idolatrous systems] are proclaimed as part of the whole council of God.
Exposure to hard and neglected passages [imprecatory Psalms, law, challenges to wealth, power, privilege, idolatrous systems, social injustice etc.] trains believers to trust even when the Word doesn’t comfort or make sense immediately. Themes of judgment, suffering, impenetrable parables, etc., at times will be heard where God’s whole council is proclaimed.
Aligning texts with the church year communicates a sacred sense of time. It also connects all churches that use this system; God’s people globally hear and discuss the same themes. This holds potential to give tangible expression to the unity of Jesus’ body, and possibility for believers globally to admonish one another according to the law of Christ.
These things touch on the very nature of Christian existence in the world. Whether they wish to acknowledge it or not, Bible Churches and confessional churches are stuck with each other. That relationship can be mediated graciously or acrimoniously.
I submit that the former is more honoring to Christ.
Well put!
“Systematic reading shapes a more complete, coherent and reliable theological understanding. And it quietly yet powerfully introduces the laity to a stable, theological system.”
It provides STRUCTURE and Context. (And depth as you explore that context.)
Not a Grimoire of one-verse verbal-component spells to be weaponized.
When I attended a Foursquare church, I timed the sermon segments for a few Sundays. Sermons were expected to be 30-45 minutes long. About 7 minutes was spent reading scripture (usually 3 disconnected verses), about 3 minutes talking about it, and the rest was anecdotes and talking off the cuff. I struggled to know what the sermon was about, 3-point slides not withstanding. One pastor said he spent more time finding photos to illustrate the slides than he did preparing the sermon. His point was that “the Spirit” was so amazing that the sermon just popped into place. My thought was that his lack of preparation was obvious each week.
When I started attending an African Methodist Episcopalian church, there was so much scripture! There is an OT and a NT reading plus the passage being preached on. My pastor follows the lectionary, so the preached passage may be what was read, a longer version, a related passage, or another passage from the week. Sermons here are 15-20 minutes. I haven’t timed the segments, but my gut says more time is spent talking about the application of the scripture than in anecdotes. It also helps that this pastor has developed the skill of clearly connecting the anecdote to the sermon’s thesis and rarely rambles. I never struggle to know what the sermon is about.
This AME is somewhat liturgical. It’s so freeing! Going to a charismatic church, there’s always self-evaluation. It’s like you have to come up with a sufficient feeling of worshipfulness before God will accept you. It’s exhausting and internally chaotic. With liturgy, I can just say the words (or not, if I’ve decided they don’t reflect my beliefs) and go through the motions without any guilt. It’s restful and liberating. I understand why people complain that liturgy is rote, but I’ve found it healing that just showing up is enough. To me, it’s an embodiment of the doctrine that God meets us where we are.
Yes, that’s exactly what I’ve found too!
I grew up Catholic and only went to Catholic Churches so that style was all I knew. Although I went to an evangelical Christian school, I never really knew what services were like in those churches. We did have what we called chapel days where we would have a speaker talk about something though most speakers rarely brought up the Bible itself. I probably wouldn’t have liked such churches honestly. Besides I was always a fan of more classic hymns rather than the modern stuff with some exceptions albeit very few and far between. If you put any worship song in the tune of Kingsfold (aka Dives and Lazarus) I am happy.
In the UK, it varies hugely from church to church. Anglicans do have a lot of Scripture in their services, but in many Anglican churches, the actual teaching is a little homily on ‘being good’ which has absolutely no reference to the Scriptures which have just been read! But at least you do at least get to hear the Scripture. I have been to some non conformist churches where the Bible is not mentioned at all in the entire service. Whenever I visit a church, I make a point of leaving my Bible in my bag until the first Scripture reference is given, as it’s a handy way of seeing how long it takes. Far too often, I leave the church without having had to get my Bible out at all!
I grew up in evangelical churches, but that is UK evangelical, which is a very different animal. Sadly, we are having to move away from using the term now, since it has become tainted by association with American ‘evangelical’. We would have at least two Scripture readings, sometimes more, and it was common to preach through an entire book – which is a great way of making sure the difficult topics are not avoided, but a bit unfair for whoever is on the preaching rota that Sunday!
Whatever they may be like now, nonconformist churches here tend to have deep roots in the Scripture. Because many of the denominations started or were most strongly supported by the working class, many church members had little or no education. So hymns would be packed with Scripture and huge chunks of the Bible would be read, so that people who might struggle to read at home were still getting to hear and hopefully remember lots of it.
In our church, we have preaching from a specific book or theme each week, but we also have a time when we read a different passage of Scripture, reflect on it and share how it has spoken to us. Every member of the congregation gets to participate if they want. Our Baptist beliefs here are that all members are equal and that God can speak through anyone. Scripture was originally read in community (reading the scrolls in the temple, sharing Paul’s letters to a room full of people) so it remains an important part of our church life. I think that’s one of the huge advantages of being part of a smaller church – a ‘very large’ church in the UK tends to only have a couple of 100 people. Most churches are under 50 in membership. There are some disadvantages, especially for youngsters who have to travel to inter church youth events to meet many folk their own age, but it does mean that everyone is involved and part of the church family.
I appreciate what you wrote, greatly, and agree with all of it. I converted to Catholicism many years ago, and my evangelical friends say to me what they have been told (but have no data for): namely that Catholics are not exposesd to the Bible. Just as you discovered, we too are bathed in it in every service (which we call a Mass), but they lack the courage to come see for themselves.
Love love love the stations of the cross. Glad you experienced it.