Worship and Preaching

Resources for preachers and worship leaders using the Revised Common Lectionary
prepared by David Beswick

Readings, suggested hymns, sermon summary and order of service under Lectionary. Complete sermon linked to title.
Refresh or Reload for the latest. RCL 3 year cycle: Extendedindex. Site contents: DBHome. Email: Contact DB

Year A: Advent , Christmas , Epiphany (Ordinary 1-5 & last) , Lent , Easter , Pentecost (incl. Ordinary 9 -34)
Year B: Advent , Christmas , Epiphany (Ordinary 1-5 & last) , Lent , Easter , Pentecost (incl. Ordinary 12-34)
Year C: Advent , Christmas , Epiphany (Ordinary 1-7 & last) , Lent , Easter , Pentecost (incl. Ordinary 11-34)

This page is linked reciprocally with the following sites among others, where many additional links to Lectionary and preaching resources may be found:-
Uniting Church Liturgical Resources UCA Assembly links to useful sites.
Sermons & Sermon-Lectionary Resources, maintained by Richard Fairchild, United Church of Canada; World's best links.
The Text This Week , lectionary based resources, links and study guides, by Jenee Woodard, USA
Bruce Prewer's Home Page . Lectionary resources from the author of Australian Psalms etc.
First Thoughts on Passages from the Gospels in the Lectionary by William Loader, Murdoch University, Western Australia.
Old Testament Lectionary Resources, by Anna Grant-Henderson of Parkin-Wesley College, Adelaide.
Lift up Your Hearts , Worship & Spirituality Site of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada
Deacon Sil's Homiletic Resources Page , Catholic Community of Saint Mary of the Lake in Lakewood, New Jersey, USA.
Liturgy that Works, New Zealand Anglican resources prepared by Bosco Peters

See also the section on Worship and Preaching in my General Information Links page where there are links to other types of material including music, children's talks, alternative liturgies and sermon illustrations. Some topical sermons are listed elsewhere on this site.

It has been my aim to post a sermon for the following Sunday at least by Tuesday each week, and usually a week or two ahead. An archive of previously posted material is maintained. Resources posted from mid 2003 come largely from the archive.

Material provided here is offered for general use with the expectation that preachers and worship leaders will be selective and adapt it to their own situation and purposes. On preparation of worship in general see Preparing for Sunday Worship. The resources made available here come largely from those developed in my last parish (1994-97) although I will often have drawn on notes from previous cycles of the Lectionary. Most of the sermons have been revised and new sermons have been written in different circumstances since. The sermon is usually the written version which was made available in the narthex for those who wished to take a copy for further study, but what was actually preached would normally have been more informal in language and shorter. Local asides and illustrations might have been included.

If anything is republished please acknowledge the source and respect any other copyrights that may be involved; otherwise there is no restriction on the non-commercial use in Christian worship of my original work. Permission is required for commercial reproduction.

The doctrinal standards which I have observed have been those of the Uniting Church in Australia as I understand them. That is in a combination of traditions that is catholic, evangelical and reformed without any strong denominational emphasis, and with a commitment to membership in the one holy catholic and apostolic church. I have normally sought to give a straight forward biblical exposition, having regard to the fruits of scholarship and the need to address the present situation.

Many of the sermons were preached at Templestowe Uniting Church in an outer eastern suburb of Melbourne. They might have been changed for my present situation in which I preach occasionally. Some sermons and liturgies are quite new, while others draw on notes from earlier times. Sometimes an alternative is offered. For the most part I have avoided commenting here on the controversies in the church, keeping to basic biblical interpretation and the traditions of the church.

Quotations from the Bible are normally from the New Revised Standard Version, copyright National Council of Churches in the USA and used with permission. I have used the QuickVerse Bible Reference Collection of computer programs from Parsons Technology for biblical searches, some definitions and the generation of quotations, and similary in some later work with Nelson's Ultimate Bible Reference Bible.

Suggested hymns in the last cycle came largley from a list for each reading in the Lectionary, prepared for the use of the new hymn book Together in Song - Australian Hymn Book II, by Denis Towner, a minister of the Uniting Church in Australia then at Taree, NSW, and a member of the inter-church committee which produced Together in Song. I have also been assisted in the choice of hymns by Towner's earlier work A Preachers Guide to the Australian Hymn Book , Unichurch Publishing , Sydney, and at some points by hymns suggested in With Love to the World, a daily Bible reading guide based on the Revised Common Lectionary produced by the Strathmore-Homebush Parish of the Uniting Church and the United Theological College, Sydney.

The basic structure of the Order of Service and some of the prayers I have followed is The Service of the Lord's Day: A Service of Word and Sacrament in Uniting in Worship, copyright The Uniting Church in Australia Assembly Commission on Liturgy, published by the Joint Board of Christian Education, Melbourne.

Copyright: © David Beswick 1997-2018. All original work on this site is protected by copyright laws. Worship and preaching resources may be copied for use locally in Christian worship with acknowledgment, but not for any commercial purpose without permission.

Privacy: Except for whatever visitors may choose to reveal about themselves in separate emails, no information is collected on the identity of individual visitors to this site. Servers, domains and referring links may be identified from time to time. No information on individual visitors is made available to any third party.

Last updated 8 June 2018 by David Beswick

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