Preaching from the whole Bible

Does it matter to you if you preach from the whole of Scripture?  Should it matter?  If you preach in a tradition that emphasizes the lectionary in worship, the congregation should at least hear most of the Bible read to them every three years in worship.  Even so, there is no guarantee you preach from each portion of the scriptures.  If you are from a more free church tradition then there is a good chance that portions of scripture go completely untouched in corporate worship over the course of a congregation's life.

I've been preaching at Southland now for five years, so I decided to do an inventory of the sermons I've preached here.  I preach from the New Testament 73% of the time, from the Old Testament 27% of the time.  Over a forth of my sermons are from the gospels, Luke being my apparent favorite.  I've preached from the third gospel twice as often as any of the others.  I've spent over three months of those five years in the book of Acts.  The rest of my NT sermons are fairly evenly split between the Pauline epistles and the rest of the NT cannon.  In the OT I've spent a lot of time in Psalms.  This inventory revealed that there are 20 OT and 5 NT books I've never preached a sermon on here at Southland.  11 of those I've covered in Wednesday evening Bible Study, but that is a much smaller crowd.

I will certainly take these numbers into consideration as I plan my sermons in the future.  Do any of you keep statistics like this?  What about keeping topical statistics (Like how many sermons on forgiveness, discipleship, loneliness, etc.)?  I could see where that might be helpful.  I'd love to have your input on your record keeping and how that record planning influences your planning.

Review: The Text this Week (www.textweek.com)

Website: http://www.textweek.com

Publisher: The Text this Week owned and operated by Jenee Woodard.

Cost: Free.

Offerings: The Text this Week serves as a resource center connecting the preacher to a wealth of articles, online commentaries, artwork, children’s sermons, prayers for worship, and more for each text in the lectionary.

Leading contributors: All of the links are provided by Woodard.  Since this site is focused upon lectionary preaching, her links connect primarily to other lectionary based resources (Lutheran, Methodist, Catholic, etc.).

My Thoughts:  One of the most difficult things about the Internet is its vastness.  There is so much information!  Admittedly, most of it totally worthless.  Google a biblical phrase and most of what you get in return has nothing to do with the Bible.  How do you find the good stuff that’s buried beneath so much garbage?  For lectionary preaching you lean on Jenee Woodard and her website The Text This Week.  What resources exist on the web for preaching on this week’s lectionary text?  Woodard has done most of the legwork for you, sorting through who knows how much garbage to find you relevant links to the biblical text.  Her gathering includes tools for preparation – commentaries, journal articles, possible illustration sources (her favorites being movies and art).  Beyond preparation, Woodard provides dozens of links to resources for worship planning – prayers, litanies, dramas, etc. 

For as many resources as she connects to (and she connects to a lot!) Woodard keeps her site clean and easily navigable.  She indexes her work by its place on the lectionary calendar, by scripture reference, and even by art or movie reference.  While the site clearly is set up with the lectionary preacher in mind, the non-lectionary preacher could easily use her scripture index as a way of aiding his or her own sermon preparation.

The only downside of The Text this Week is that Woodard is so thorough in her gathering of resources that one can feel overwhelmed with the number of links just on her page.  But that’s a little like complaining about having too much of a good thing. My guess is that preachers who frequent The Text this Week slowly discover their favorite links and return to those over and over again.  Overall, Woodard’s efforts serve as a great kindness to preachers hoping to discover a shortcut to finding good resources online.