When I wrote Priming the Lectionary, I didn’t imagine it as a book you simply read once and shelve. I pictured it living on a desk, in a vestry, beside a favourite chair or in a chaplain’s bag – a resource you reach for as you shape worship, conversations and community life.
Every faith setting is different. Some follow the lectionary closely; others dip in occasionally, or don’t use it at all. Some meet on Sundays, some midweek, some mostly online. The good news is that Priming the Lectionary is designed as a flexible toolkit, not a rigid script.
Here are six ways you might use it in your context.
1. As a starting point for worship planning
If you’re planning worship around the lectionary readings, Priming the Lectionary can save you from staring at a blank page.
- Begin with the Threads to Explore for the week and notice which ones resonate most with your community’s current realities – joy, grief, protest, exhaustion, celebration.
- Use the Context & Connections to deepen your engagement with the text from a justice-shaped, inclusive perspective, especially where the passage is tricky or has been used harmfully in the past.
- Let one or two Practice ideas nudge you towards actions, not just words – perhaps a simple ritual, a commitment to a local justice issue, or a way to centre voices that are often unheard.
You absolutely don’t have to use every section each time. Think of it as a set of tools: take what you need for this particular service and leave the rest for another day.
2. To support preachers and those who offer reflections
Preaching can be daunting, especially if you’re new to it, sharing the role with others, or working within time and energy limits.
Priming the Lectionary can help by:
- Offering justice-shaped angles on familiar texts, so sermons don’t default to individualism or “try harder” spirituality.
- Providing questions and images that invite people to locate themselves in the story, including those often pushed to the edges – queer people, disabled people, carers, those living in poverty, people carrying trauma.
- Modelling inclusive language for God and for people, which you can adapt into your own voice.
You might use the book a week or two ahead of time as you prepare, or gather a small preaching team to meet and discuss the Threads and Context together. That shared reflection can help ensure worship feels joined-up, rather than everyone working in isolation.
3. As a framework for small groups and Bible conversations
You don’t have to be planning a full service to use Priming the Lectionary. The structure lends itself to small groups in homes, church halls, cafés, online spaces or chaplaincy settings.
For example, a simple session could look like:
- Light a candle or take a quiet moment and pray the opening Prayer together, adapting it for your own context if you wish.
- Read one or more of the lectionary texts aloud, leaving space for silence.
- Choose one or two Threads to Explore and invite people to respond:
- Where do you see this in your own life or community?
- What questions does this raise about justice, power, inclusion or exclusion?
- Use a Creative or Visual suggestion as a gentle, playful way in – perhaps drawing, choosing objects, writing single words, or using simple movement. These can be especially helpful for people who find long, abstract discussion hard to access.
- End with one of the Practice ideas or create your own small act of commitment for the week ahead.
Groups that include people with different processing styles or access needs might particularly appreciate the variety: listening, speaking, creating, moving, reflecting quietly. You can mix and match to suit those who are present.
4. For personal prayer, journalling and reflection
Although Priming the Lectionary is written with gathered worship in mind, many people find that they connect most honestly with scripture and prayer on their own, or with one trusted friend.
You might:
- Use the Meditation as a focus for personal prayer – reading it slowly, perhaps aloud, and noticing which phrases tug at your heart or challenge you.
- Copy a line from the Prayer or Deepening the Word into a journal and sit with it for a week, noticing where it surfaces in your everyday life.
- Take a Practice idea and adapt it as a personal discipline – for example, a daily action of solidarity, a simple way of blessing a neighbour, or a commitment to notice joy in an ordinary place.
If you are someone who has been hurt or excluded by church, you may also find it helpful to use Priming the Lectionary as a way of revisiting readings that have been weaponised against you, approaching them through a gentler, more liberating lens. Go at your own pace; the book is there to serve you, not the other way round.
5. In chaplaincy, workplace and “beyond the building” contexts
Many of us find that the most honest faith conversations don’t happen in church buildings at all, but in workplaces, schools, cafés, hospitals, community projects or online.
In those kinds of settings, you might not be able to run through an entire service, but you can still draw on the book:
- Use one of the Threads or a short line from the Meditation as a conversation starter in a reflective group, staff prayer time or informal gathering.
- Bring a simple Creative or Visual idea that can work around a table or in a staff room – something tactile but low-pressure, that gives people different ways to engage.
- Let the Practice section shape the “so what?” of your session: what might this mean in terms of workplace culture, care for one another, or the way a team responds to those on the margins?
Because Priming the Lectionary is rooted in everyday justice and inclusion, it can often connect more naturally with the realities people face in these contexts than highly “churchy” resources.
6. As a conversation partner for teams and leadership groups
Finally, Priming the Lectionary can be a helpful companion for those who carry responsibility in faith settings: church councils, leadership teams, worship committees, chaplaincy boards and more.
You might:
- Set aside time once a term to look back at recent Sundays, using the Threads and Practices to ask: where have we already been leaning into justice and inclusion – and where do we need to be braver?
- Choose a particularly challenging upcoming Sunday and plan together, using the book as a shared reference point.
- Reflect on access and welcome:
- Whose stories and bodies have been visible in our worship?
- Who has been missing, or present but unheard?
- How could we use the Creative, Visual and Practice suggestions to widen participation – including children, disabled people, neurodivergent people and those who aren’t comfortable up front?
Using the book this way isn’t about enforcing one “right” approach. It’s about building a shared language and imagination around inclusive, justice-shaped worship, so that you’re not relying on one person to hold that vision alone.
Start small, stay kind to yourselves
You don’t have to implement everything at once. In fact, I’d strongly encourage you not to.
Maybe this season you simply:
- use the Threads to Explore to guide your preaching focus,
- or choose one Practice idea each month to try together,
- or let a single Meditation shape a house group or quiet evening.
However you use Priming the Lectionary, my hope is that it helps you see scripture and worship with fresh eyes – and that it supports you as you create spaces where more people can recognise themselves in the story of God.
If you’re already using Priming the Lectionary in your setting, I’d love to hear how. Your experiments, questions and discoveries will help shape future resources, so that together we can keep moving towards worship that is genuinely inclusive, justice-shaped and full of life.
I’m already working on the next editions – and don’t forget I’m building additional free materials through the Priming the Lectionary section on my website.