A Noticeable Change

This post continues an ongoing update from The General Convention of The Episcopal Church meeting in Columbus, Ohio:

One change made yesterday will be quite noticeable for those paying attention to the Sunday scripture readings...the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) was approved to be the official lectionary of The Episcopal Church. The RCL will replace the lectionary found in the Book of Common Prayer as of this December when we begin a new church year.

As the explanation given for the resolution said

This Lectionary, produced by the Consultation on Common Texts, composed of a wide number of church bodies, is a revision of the Common Lectionary, which was authorized for trial use by the 67th and 68th General Conventions...The Lectionary was again authorized for trial use by the 71st, 72nd, 74th Conventions...The Revised Common Lectionary is becoming the common lectionary among Christian denominations.

The idea is that the RCL will draw us together with other denominations as we all use the same texts each Sunday. But the idea was also that all denominations make the change. In practice, the current lectionary we use from the Book of Common Prayer is the same used by the Roman Catholics and Lutherans who worship with us at King of Peace and the RCL will divide us in terms of our readings rather than unite us.

What is good, and was the reason for the change, is that the RCL puts more of the stories of the Old Testament in context as they are read in course in the Sundays after Pentecost (during the summer). And were this change not to take us out of psynch with others, we would little notice the change at all.

The Rev. Joy Fisher from Trinity in Cochran, Georgia put forward an ammendment to allow the current lectionary to also be used not through 2010 as stated in the resolution, but for good. That resolution was ammended by someone seeking to reverse the order to keep the lectionary from the prayer book as primary and the RCL as an allowed substitute. The ammendment to the ammendment failed by about 2/3s. Joy's orginal ammendment failed narrowly by half and the resolution to change our lectionary passed. I voted in favor of both ammendments and opposed the main resolution.

Other legislation passed yesterday, but this one will have the most effect on our week by week worship in Kingsland.

In other Diocese of Georgia news, Molly Greneker proposed an ammendment yesterday to a resolution about the dates for the next General Convention. Molly sought to limit the dates to July to make it more possible for youth and educators to come as deputies. The ammendment failed.

peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor + King of Peace Episcopal Church


The 20 people from the Diocese of Georgia on hand as Deputies and alternates together with the Bishop and Jan Louttit and those attending the convention as volunteers and those on hand for the Episcopal Church Women convention all gathered for a family-style Italian dinner at Bocca di Beppo in Columbus.