Educate me, what are lectionaries?

A lectionary is kind of like a "read through the Bible in a year" plan, though the one our church uses (the Revised Common Lectionary) goes on a three-year cycle. It's a way to make sure that you're covering all the parts of Scripture regularly, and not just focusing on your favorite books over and over. It follows the Church Year so that seasonally appropriate texts are chosen when applicable, during Advent, Lent, and Pentecost, for example. And it makes sure you get a good mix of OT, Psalms, Gospels, and Epistles or Revelation every week.

The other thing the lectionary does is it encourages you to think of how passages relate to other ones instead of only seeing them in isolation. It's somewhat subjective what passages will be grouped together, and sometimes it seems random, but there is usually some evidence of thought put into it. Either an OT passage put together with a NT one that it foreshadows, or a similar theme showing up across several passages. It's good food for thought, sometimes brings out an aspect of one of the texts that you might not have thought of before, just reading it in isolation.

The lectionary isn't actually a true "read through the Bible" plan because there are some passages it leaves out (boring OT lists of clans and armies, etc.). I've never gone through systematically and made a table of what passages were left out, but I've always wanted to do that. There might be different biases in what gets overlooked depending on the theology of the lectionarists, and I'm curious.

Anyway, for my church it's just a fallback to use if the preacher doesn't have another topic or passage they want to preach on, and if we're not in the middle of our summer sermon series in which we go through a whole book of the Bible. We stray away from the lectionary more often than not. I wouldn't want to be stuck always having to follow the lectionary texts like some churches do. I like having it there as a guide, but holding onto it loosely.

There are several good sites for picking relevant worship material based on the lectionary texts of the week, so a church that follows the lectionary has a lot of help to draw on in planning meaningful services. The Text This Week and Singing from the Lectionary are two good ones.

I don't know much about the various traditions of Lectionaries. I know that the RCL came into existence in the 80s and 90s as a revision of what had been previously only a Roman Catholic lectionary. It was developed by an ecumenical collaboration. It's used mostly only by the Catholics and mainline Protestant denominations. But I go to a Mennonite Church (not a liturgical tradition at all) and we have been using it somewhat, though only for the past couple of years.

I don't really use the lectionary for my own personal study, though once in a while I'll read the passages that I know are going to be preached on at church ahead of time. For a couple of years, I followed the Bible readings laid out in Celtic Daily Prayer, which is a kind of lectionary + prayer book, put out by the Northumbria Community. I found it good to have a discipline imposed on me from without. Otherwise I can tend to be really haphazard about my Bible reading. I'd just open up to a random passage and start reading, letting the Spirit guide me. That's fine sometimes. But who says the Spirit doesn't guide the people making the selections for the lectionary, and choreograph it into my life so that the passage of the day sometimes seems to be selected just for me? There are times when the lectionary passage seems irrelevant to me at the moment, but that's part of Christian discipleship too -- keeping going through the dry periods, in faith that something is happening anyway, even if I don't feel like it is.

Mark Stevens

I am about to begin using the lectionary for the first time. I have found a book called, "Living the Christian Year" by Bobby Gross to be very helpful.

Did you really want to give me an invitation? A short historical introduction.

"Lectionary" is used in two ways - one, the book of the texts that are read in church/temple services and two, a simple list of the readings. An ordo is the small book that matches lectionary liturgical dates to secular calendar dates so that one isn't spending all one's time figuring out what to read. The ordo frequently includes Liturgy of the Hours/Divine Office/Morning & Evening Prayer informations as well.

The design may include (a) continuous reading of a book i.e. straight through (b) semi-continuous reading i.e. sequentially with some skips of (c) selected topical readings. The individual readings are called "lections" or "pericopes" - note several English dictionaries define pericope as a lection rather than "a short, cohesive passage for study" (the Logos usage).

The first lectionary used in the Judeo-Christian tradition was the Torah cycle that developed early in the exile - it read through the Torah in a three year cycle. A couple or three decades later, a second lectionary in which the Torah was read in a one-year cyle developed. I don't know exactly when the readings from the prophets were added to the Torah cycles nor when the readings for the high holy days developed. They were both well entrenched by New Testament times.

Note that the Jewish scripture reading took place in a worship service in which the readings were not only juxtaposed against each other; they were also juxtaposed against the psalms and prayers of the synagogue service. Now remember that Christianity grew out of Judaism. Historically what I would call "Liturgy of the Word" (Scripture reading, preaching and prayer) developed out of the Jewish practices.

Now think a bit about the historical situation. Church buildings/services needed to be within walking distance of all the parishioners. Handcopied books were extremely expensive. Computers didn't provide annual ordos. The result - many churches did not have access to a full Bible. They couldn't afford it. They ended up with Gospels with pericopes marked, maybe some epistles, or maybe a lectionary sense 1. That is to say that while a church might not be able to afford a full Bible, they might be able to afford a lectionary which would give them a broad spectrum of excerpts from the Bible. Typical of its Jewish roots, scripture was read in the context of a service including psalms and prayers.

The number of readings for a "normal" service varied between 2-7 depending upon the rite celebrated. The Eastern Church, in general, was richer (no Dark Ages) and used more readings than in the Western Church. Translation: the East could afford more books. There was a similarity in all the reading cycles as they had several common elements: (a) liturgical year with the incarnation, death and resurrection as lynch pins (b) the pinacle of the readings always being a passage from a Gospel (c) a period in which the readings reflected the preparation of converts.

Next major event: the invention of the chimney. Until the chimney was invented, in the West the entire household gathered aroung a single fire. In rich houses that could afford prayer books, Gospels, etc., and reading was done out loud and was addressed to the entire household. With the chimney there were heat sources in individual rooms - silent reading became common.

Next major event: invention of the printing press. Suddenly, books including the Scriptures were mass produced - churches and individuals could afford whole Bibles. Lectionaries became more standardized. (yes, there were a number of other influences but this is a 'brief' introduction.) However, some reformers (think Martin Luther) used lectionaries but allowed more variations often in the form of a choice of lectionaries. Other reformers such as the Church of England (think Book of Common Prayer) stuck with more uniformity.

So what is the effect of having a reading plan of scripture (a lectionary)?

The norm, even in private study, is to hear/read scripture in the context of other scripture plus psalms. The most common "minimum" is Gospel, epistle, psalms
The mindset for study (except for Protestant converts) is to read Scripture in light of Scripture e.g. a study of the Pentateuch may start with a comparison of Genesis 1-11 to Revelation.
Scripture is learned from art (Orthodox church screens often depict the whole life of Christ in 12 icons), music, hearing, praying, study ...
The pattern of readings and prayers assist in allowing lay people to keep scripture in mind even if they cannot read it themselves.
No pastor can go off and only use passages he personally likes - he has to preach it all [I get to hear the homilist gripe about be assigned Trinity Sunday nearly every year.]

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/52432#Comment_52432

It's somewhat subjective what passages will be grouped together, and sometimes it seems random, but there is usually some evidence of thought put into it. Either an OT passage put together with a NT one that it foreshadows, or a similar theme showing up across several passages. It's good food for thought, sometimes brings out an aspect of one of the texts that you might not have thought of before, just reading it in isolation.

The lectionary isn't actually a true "read through the Bible" plan because there are some passages it leaves out (boring OT lists of clans and armies, etc.).

The RCL structure:

Advent season - the readings are all "handpicked" for the Sunday i.e. a topical relations going backwards through time from the second coming back to the first.
Season of Lent - the first reading traces salvation history from Adam to Christ; the three weeks before Palm Sunday have Gospel readings chosen for training of adults entering the Church on Easter (readings date back to the very eary church)
Easter season - first readings from Acts, tracing the history of the Church
Usual pattern: Gospel is a semi-continuous reading of the year's Gospel (this is the year of Luke); semi-continuous reading of an epistle; first reading (Old Testament) has topical connection to Gospel; psalm is usually a response to some element of the first reading or the Gospel.
Alternate pattern: For the time between Easter and Advent, there is an alternative Old Testament reading drawing from the Lutheran tradition that supplies more of the longer narrative readings (Catholic tradition is heavy on Wisdom literature).

The lectionary and prayer book need to be considered together to determine how much of the Scripture is covered. For traditions using an Office of Readings the percentage is quite high. For lectionary only, consider the 3 year cycle to cover 20-30% with the Gospels being nearly complete, the epistles high and the Old Testament pulling it down. I've seen actual figures but am too lazy to find them right now.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/52647#Comment_52647

Great intro, MJ!

Matthew C Jones

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/52647#Comment_52647

Did you really want to give me an invitation?

First of all, I never get tired of reading your posts MJ. You have no need to second guess an invitation. I would know next to nothing about most creeds, lectionaries and a host of other fascinating and relevant subjects were it not for you. So keep 'em coming.

The mindset for study (except for Protestant converts) is to read Scripture in light of Scripture e.g. a study of the Pentateuch may start with a comparison of Genesis 1-11 to Revelation.

Maybe I don't get the depth to which Catholic study goes but I have seen many Protestant branches who do the same contrast with ("in light of") other scripture. Some of my favorite commentators do it all the time Typologies, A. B. Simpson, Norman L. Geisler Collection http://www.logos.com/products/prepub/details/5665 , Jesus Christ Our Lord http://www.logos.com/ebooks/details/GS_WALV_JCOL .
Scripture is learned from art This is used at the core of classical education and is sorely lacking in most modern day Christian education. The trivium & quadrivium produced great results employing art to train the mind. The closest thing Western education offers is ridiculously shallow "appreciation courses." I view the new features in Logos 4 (Bible People, Places, Things) to have great potential in addressing this field if we can import great art and index it for retrieval. Still, I don't get how the lectionaries are useful here.

Stephen Thorp

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/52672#Comment_52672

Hi, I would just like to say a few words and endorse Martha's analysis of what a Lectionary is for. I'm an Anglican Clergyman (Church of England) and we use the Revised Common Lectionary (very slightly modified). I'm also an Evangelical who before I was ordained would have probably have frowned upon lectionary usage as being something rather too Catholic BUT although I love preaching Biblical series with multiple churches I have found using a Lectionary as one of the better ways of consistantly teaching a Biblical pattern. Throughout the course of three years one has pretty much read through (if not preached) all of the Scriptures. Matthew in year A, Mark in year B and Luke in year C. John is sprinkled throughout.

However the Lectionary does assume that each church worships twice on a Sunday, but with multiple churches this isn't always possible.

For my own personal devotion I find the M'Cheyne reading plan excellent.

Hope this helps.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/52672#Comment_52672

Still, I don't get how the lectionaries are useful here.

Ah, yes, I didn't give the complete thought. Because of the use of art to depict Old Testament stories, the Catholic Church emphasized epistles and Gospel with little Old Testament until the 1972(?) revision. Because Lutherans did not rely on art, they used more OT stories. However, the Biblical literacy of Catholics was not necessarily lower because the lectionary was not assumed to present "the whole story".

many Protestant branches who do the same contrast with ("in light of") other scripture

You are absolutely right that Protestants are often very strong in the "Scripture interprets Scripture" strain. The main difference is that lectionary-based Scriptural study is reflexively multi-textual and individual texts "foreign territory requiring extra effort". E.g. the homilist starts with three passages and narrows it down. Taking a broad swath view, non-lectionary Protestant homilists start with a single passage and add passages to support their thread of thought. But if you look broadly at scripture studies you'll find that there is a Orthodox-Catholic-Jewish sensibility, and Anglican-Lutheran sensibility that is close to the first but with some Protestant tendencies, and at least a couple of Protestant sensibilities.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/52703#Comment_52703

However the Lectionary does assume that each church worships twice on a Sunday, but with multiple churches this isn't always possible.

It is true that Jewish practice expected three services per day. This became praying the Our Father three times a day (see Didache). Which morphed into Mass, Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer for the three Our Fathers in the Catholic tradition. Both Lutherans and Anglicans have preserved the multiple service tradition in the Protestant tradition.

TCBlack

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/52715#Comment_52715

Martha, thank you for answering that post. I have no doubt you could have gone to much greater depth and still been as engaging. But you answered the same question for me now. Thanks for your insight.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/52727#Comment_52727

I have been a bit busy today building some on-line training materials for a corproate customer, so I am late to the discussion.

MJ, thanks for your post, I will print this out and read it a bit later. It looks wonderful.

Thanks again :-)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/52854#Comment_52854

Rosie, thanks to you as well for your post. I will print it out as well :-)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/52647#Comment_52647

Excellent summation Martha.

No pastor can go off and only use passages he personally likes - he has to preach it all [I get to hear the homilist gripe about be assigned Trinity Sunday nearly every year.]

This always astounds me.

It's grounded in a sense that the Trinity is a doctrine and not our lived experience of the loving God who has saved us through his Son and unites us to the Son's eternal self-offering by the power of the Holy Spirit.

It is always a joy for me to preach on Trinity Sunday.

BillS

How do you personally use them? Why?

Hi Joe,

I'd like to add one more perspective that's complementary to what you've already been offered... more on the "why" than the "how"...

I use the lectionary to guide (but not mandate) the scriptures on which I preach. Why? Over time, I get to preach on every important subject without anyone being able to say I'm aiming at them, since it's all part of the 3-year cycle. When I touch on a forgiveness passage & it happens that some member is struggling with forgiveness issues, they know it was providence & not guided by me. :-)

Blessings!

Bill

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/52713#Comment_52713

1972(?) revision

1969...

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/52854#Comment_52854

MJ, thanks for your post, I will print this out and read it a bit later. It looks wonderful.

Rosie, thanks to you as well for your post. I will print it out as well :-)

What, a power Logos user and Forum MVP would prefer to read something on dead-tree paper than on the screen? That's ironic! :-)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/52882#Comment_52882

Yes, I know, shocking! But after almost 6 hours of video editing some on-line training materials, I need a break [|-)]

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/52891#Comment_52891

If I might quote my favorite Bible Translation (cough cough) the Message from Isaiah 40:30 "Even MVPs grow tired and weary, and forum participants need to read offline;"

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/52895#Comment_52895

If I might quote my favorite Bible Translation (cough cough) the Message from Isaiah 40:30 "Even MVPs grow tired and weary, and forum participants need to read offline;"

Hear hear! I love taking a break and reading a book. You know, one of those old fashioned thingies?

Matthew C Jones

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/52882#Comment_52882

What, a power Logos user and Forum MVP would prefer to read something on dead-tree paper than on the screen? That's ironic! :-)

HeeHee. [:)] That makes me feel good. I have three printers None are plugged in. And I bought the paper in them last Christmas.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/52898#Comment_52898

Finally got a chance to read all the comments. Very helpful and informative. Thank you. I may give a lectionary reading plan a try when that feature is implemented on the mac. Does anyone have a preference or favorite?

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54082#Comment_54082

Finally got a chance to read all the comments. Very helpful and informative. Thank you. I may give a lectionary reading plan a try when that feature is implemented on the mac. Does anyone have a preference or favorite?

I like the Revised Common Lectionary, not because it's superior to any others (it's kind of arbitrary which one you use), but simply because it's so universally used that a lot of extra supportive materials have cropped up for it all over the place for finding art and films and hymns and sermons and devotional meditations on the lectionary texts for the day. You know the classic devotional reading guides like Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon and My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers, both of which are in Logos (with the type "Calendar Devotional")? Well, those are essentially miniature lectionaries (not covering the entire breadth of Scripture, just a small subset) with devotional meditations built in.

BTW, here is a useful site for explaining the Church Year from Protestant Perspective, and there are links to lots of lectionary resources (based on the RCL) on that site, too.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54271#Comment_54271

universally used

I'd guess that the Catholic Lectionary is more widely used....

But, there are definitely more resources available in the English speaking world for the RCL (in print, on line and in Logos). I also think that they were able to correct some of the poor choices made in the Catholic Lectionary (wrt pericope selections and some of the OT-Gospel connections). At the same time, many of the OT-Gospel selections in the Catholic Lectionary are quite inspired - I prefer this to the continuous readings offered in the RCL after Pentecost

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54325#Comment_54325

universally used

I'd guess that the Catholic Lectionary is more widely used....

But, there are definitely more resources available in the English speaking world for the RCL (in print, on line and in Logos). I also think that they were able to correct some of the poor choices made in the Catholic Lectionary (wrt pericope selections and some of the OT-Gospel connections). At the same time, many of the OT-Gospel selections in the Catholic Lectionary are quite inspired - I prefer this to the continuous readings offered in the RCL after Pentecost

Perhaps you're right in terms of number of people using it. What I meant is the RCL is used by a greatest number of denominations and across the theological spectrum: Presbyterian, Methodist, Anglican, Episcopal, Lutheran (both ELCS and Missouri Synod), RCA, United Church of Christ, American Baptist Churches, etc. Catholics surely trump just about everyone else in terms of membership numbers. But if someone who is not used to lectionaries and might even have some leftover suspicion about them (due to them being "too Catholic") is venturing to try it out, I'd recommend the RCL rather than the Catholic Lectionary, simply because of the diversity of believers who use it. The RCL is based on the Catholic Lectionary anyway, so there's a lot of similarity, except that the Catholic Lectionary includes readings from the Apocrypha (1 & 2 Maccabees, Tobit, Sirach, Baruch, Wisdom of Solomon). Some Protestants might not be too comfortable with that. There's a pretty extensive website about the Catholic Lectionary, though, if anyone is interested. I found in it a table of statistics that answered a question I posed a bit further back on this thread: how much of the Bible is covered in the lectionary?

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54082#Comment_54082

Does anyone have a preference or favorite?

Now that there is a proposed daily RCL, I would recommend the RCL for two reasons:

For the time between Easter and Advent, it gives you the option of following the more Lutheran OT narratives vs. the more Catholic Wisdom literature
The daily lectionary is build on a plan that reads passages related to the prior Sunday for the first part of the week but related to the coming Sunday for the latter part of the week. This is easier to understand than the Catholic "independent" weekday schedule which has the advantage of semi-continuous reading of books.

There is the disadvantage that it is a 3 year cycle. You could always go with the traditional 1-year cycle with weekday readings of the Lutheran, Anglican or Catholic tradition.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54345#Comment_54345

Perhaps you're right in terms of number of people using it.

I was also thinking about number of countries, etc.... It was only a small quibble....

More importantly, I do agree with your recommendation to Joe to look at the RCL....

The RCL is based on the Catholic Lectionary anyway, so there's a lot of similarity, except that ...

Plus, as mentioned they diverge significantly after Pentecost. The RCL goes for continuous readings and therefore ends up covering more ground. The Catholic Lectionary continues its typological or prophesy/fulfilment approach.

Friedrich

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54352#Comment_54352

i don't come from a tradition that uses lectionaries, but had college and grad training that encouraged all forms of worship (liturgical, free-form, whatever). I started using lectionaries (within Logos!) a couple years back, primarily around Lent/Easter. Once for Advent, too, I believe. It was refreshing for me to use.

I have found this Logos resource helpful:

http://www.logos.com/products/details/2228

At a recent retreat near an Anglican Seminary in Wisconsin, my wife and I would head over to Morning and Evening Prayers. Way more subdued and perfunctory than I was used to, but I loved the daily witness and gained in my perspective (using the dawn of the day to reflect on the Light, etc). Of course that has more to do with Liturgy and the BCP than straight lectionary. But for this kid, its kind of all rolled together. [Z]

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54363#Comment_54363

But for this kid, its kind of all rolled together.

You've got it right - the Didache's "command" for the Lord's Prayer three times daily is Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, Mass ... naturally, if you pick up a Jewish Siddur (prayer book) you will find a three times daily pattern. Funny how some of these patterns persist - although I'd love to read something on how they disappeared - and why they are reappearing in some traditions.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54366#Comment_54366

You've got it right - the Didache's "command" for the Lord's Prayer three times daily is Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, Mass ... naturally, if you pick up a Jewish Siddur (prayer book) you will find a three times daily pattern. Funny how some of these patterns persist - although I'd love to read something on how they disappeared - and why they are reappearing in some traditions.

I'm guessing they disappeared with or shortly after the Reformation. In my Protestant evangelical upbringing, or something I picked up along the way after that, everything to do with ritual or liturgy was viewed with suspicion as "too Catholic" or "traditions of men."

I think that the reasons this is changing in the past couple of decades are:

Ecumenical movement. There's a general sense of opening up more to other traditions and learning from them; breaking down walls between denominations, etc.
Postmodernity / Emergent. There's a desire to reconnect with the past after modernity cut us off from our roots. Modernity affected the church just as much as it did the rest of culture. While some churches are still suspicious of "postmodernity" as being a threat to Christian faith because it denigrates metanarratives (the Biblical story is the grand Metanarrative of all), postmoderns are actually more open to Christian faith and spirituality than their secular modernist forbears were. They might take it in with a sort of smorgasbord approach, along with Native American spirituality and Gaia earth spirituality and all kinds of other things. But at least they aren't hating it and are exposed to the Gospel through it. I could not believe how many young people there were filling the sanctuary and strewn all over the floor at the evening Compline service at St. Mark's (Episcopal) Cathedral in Seattle the last time I dropped in a couple of years ago. Back in the 80s, when I lived in Seattle, it used to be a very small number of devoted high church or music-loving people. Now it's full of postmodern young adults. The Emergent movement is tapping into the same sort of desire -- to recapture the loss of mystery that modernity imposed on the church. So opening up to liturgy and the spirituality of the Catholic tradition is one manifestation.
Globalization and the Internet. More access to people from different perspectives leads to less parochialism in general. The world is simply more connected - blogs, Facebook, etc. The results is that Christians of all stripes are more connected too. Also we now have more access to shared resources through the web such as these liturgies.

In the past two decades I have seen the following changes towards more liturgy in previously non-liturgical churches:

In my Presbyterian Church in Seattle, sometime in the early 90s we shifted to intentionally observing the church calendar, having Advent and Lenten study series to go along with the sermons, putting up the seasonal colors for each Sunday of the year on cloths draped from the pulpit and elsewhere.

In my Mennonite Church in Vancouver, we now follow the RCL just within the past few years. And we often borrow liturgies of prayer from various traditions in our worship services.

At one point I realized that even in self-consciously non-liturgical churches there often is a certain set liturgy, or elements of the service that are repeated in a certain order from week to week. The sermon always comes at a certain point, the offering is taken at a certain point, the service starts with some sort of welcome or call to worship, they pray the Lord's Prayer together. That's all liturgy. Even extemporanous prayers use a lot of canned phrases that get repeated over and over ("Lord, we just thank you for...", "In Jesus Name, Amen", and so forth). We are creatures of pattern and repetition. It helps us to remember. It helps us to feel secure when things are predictable. I'm all for letting the Spirit lead when it comes to worship, but the Spirit also works through mindful repetition. That's quite different from mindless, rote repetition.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54391#Comment_54391

Thanks everyone for the ideas. I think I will try the RCL when the reading feature is implemented in the Mac.

Blessings.

Dan Sheppard

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/52898#Comment_52898

Lectionaries, a Lutheran perspective.

Rosie is dead-on in what a lectionary is.

Lutherans have their own lectionary, which is also a 3-year term.

One application of it, is when I make "pocket power".

Each Saturday, go to the lectionary and see what the lessons are, which will be read in church on Sunday morning. I can determine with confidence, what those are, because of the lectionary. I can tell you now, what will be read the first Sunday in April of next year, for example.

So I find the appropriate Old Testament, Gospel, and Epistle lessons. Lutherans throw in a lesson from Psalm, which can be read but most often, recited sort of like Gregorian Chant.

Once I get the passages, I look through them to see what would fit on a small little card, the size of a mailing label. Then I copy the passage from my Logos into Word, and chop it up, removing verse numbers and those little alpha references in small lettering.

Then on 6 colors of card stock, print them and then cut them into sections.

Then Sunday, I hand them out to each and every person. On the back of them, is the name of our church, address, phone number, and website.

When I DON'T do them, I hear from the congregants, who have become used to getting them.

If I didn't have the lectionary, it would be much harder to try to tie Pocket Powers to whatever the Pastor is speaking about. I can always know, because he preaches from the lectionary, like every other Lutheran pastor!

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54852#Comment_54852

One application of it, is when I make "pocket power".

That is a great idea!