One of the most awesome resources provided to the Church through the publication of Lutheran Service Book is the table given in the Daily Lectionary, which is found on page (where is my Pew Edition?) of the Pew Edition. Every copy of Lutheran Service Book in the home contains this list of readings, which are intended to give you a trip through the Scriptures in a single year, with one Old Testament reading and one New Testament reading per day.
So many people resolve at the beginning of the year to more deliberately and purposefully begin a study of God’s Word, but how many of them succeed at this task? If you are to believe this post on the ESV Bible Blog, not many—and you stand the greatest chance of success if you manage to last through the month of March and press on through the year. What a blessing, then, that the LSB Daily Lectionary begins with Ash Wednesday, which is normally more than a full month closer to that point of resistance!
Google Calendar Can Make It Easy
Not long after I had begun considering using the Daily Lectionary as my guide for this year (a full year later than I should have begun), it struck me that there must be ways to use this Internet thing and the helps granted to us through the gifts of technology to assist not only myself but others in the process of walking through the Scriptures in one year. (Note that the Daily Lectionary quite honestly states in its rubrics that its goal is not the complete exploration of every nook and cranny in the Scriptures, but rather a holistic view and a good picture of the grace of God as revealed in the written Word.)
For my part in all this, I have begun working on a Google Calendar that holds appointments for each day in the Daily Lectionary. If you would like to subscribe to this calendar, you may use this button, and you’ll be prompted to either add it to your existing account, or create a Google Account that you can then use to subscribe to the calendar:
The LSB Daily Lectionary
Each day has a full-day appointment that contains within the title the Scripture references for the day, including any optional readings. For instance, the following appointment is set for Wednesday, 13 February of this year:
Gen. 8:13-9:17 [Gen. 9:18-11:26]; Mark 4:1-20
You can receive more information on the appointment if you click on it in the calendar or look at it in your calendaring application, but this appointment text informs you that the OT reading is from Genesis 8:13-9:17, and there is an optional extension to that reading to read on from Genesis 9:18-11:26. Likewise, the New Testament reading for the day is Mark 4:1-20.
If you were to click on the appointment or otherwise read the detail text for the appointment, you’ll see that the appointment itself includes links to the online version of the ESV for the appointed texts. If you don’t mind doing your reading at your computer (or even a mobile device), you could very easily click through and easily find the readings all at once.
You’ll notice quite quickly that the entire calendar is not yet constructed. Because the LSB Daily Lectionary dates are conditional on the date of Easter, and Easter’s date is naturally (or should I say lunarily) fluid, the dates of the readings shift from year to year. I’m trying to stay ahead of the game at least one month at all times, and am praying for a burst of free time and dedication where I might finish more than one month at a sitting, but if you notice that I’ve fallen behind, please contact me and give me a brotherly or sisterly nudge.
For those who are inclined to observe other occasions within the Church Year in their devotional lives, I’ve also created calendars for the Feasts and Festivals and Commemorations as listed in the forepart of Lutheran Service Book, and you can reach those calendars here:
(Link forthcoming. It’s late.)
The feast/festival calendar does not yet contain the readings and/or propers citations appropriate to the day, but I do plan to add them in the future. If anyone is interested, I’m very keen on figuring out what can or cannot go in the Commemorations appointments - I’d love to be able to put something in there about each person (or persons), but don’t have a lot of personal knowledge concerning some of these people and would appreciate the assistance - maybe a short biography or reason of importance, plus some additional reading for extra credit.
Enough with the Techno-Stuff - So What’s This “Project” Thing?
You can’t fool me; I’ve seen the size of some of these Lutheran blogrolls out there. Lots of Lutherans have set up camp on the Internet. I’ve also seen that we like to write a lot, and (I would hope) we enjoy and find delight in the study of God’s Word. So here’s what I propose:
Take the time to follow the Daily Lectionary this year. You don’t have to hit every day if you need to start light, though I certainly encourage it. Add the Google Calendar to your list of subscriptions, or use the additional resources given at the end of this post to encourage your reading habits and link to other people who are doing the same. If you are so inclined, write a post each day on your devotional reading. Don’t necessarily include the text—citing it is awesome enough—but take the time to ruminate on what you have read. Don’t just read it and file it away; think about it and digest it a bit. Maybe you write a little devotional or some chattering to yourself or no one in particular.
Use the Google Calendar. Use your Lutheran Service Book and a pocket or desk Bible if you prefer the Mark I Eyeball to later technological inventions. Study with your family, or with your spouse, or with friends, classmates, or a fellow brother. Encourage others to do the same.
If you do choose to blog about your journey through the Word, assist your brothers and sisters in finding this information by making sure you tag your post with the tag lsb2008, so we can get some Technorati points rolling and bring a bit of community and solidarity to the process. (For an example of how awesome this can be, check out this list of results from search Technorati for the tag bibletech08, which all bloggers at the recent conference were encouraged to use.)
For my part, I will be working on following the lectionary myself and following my own advice, but I will also provide updates here whenever the resources have changed or something interesting has happened. If you’d like to follow along with me, you can either view all my posts tagged lsb2008, or you can subscribe to an RSS feed that is tailored to include only those posts tagged the same way. That way, you can avoid the sometimes (admittedly) large amount of posting I tend to do here and focus just on what I’m writing on the project.
In any case, I hope you will join me in this little project, and I pray that it will be useful to you and that what you read will aid the work of the Holy Spirit in your life as you open your heart and mind to the power of the Word.
Additional Resources
I’m getting there; hold on.