by Pastor Dan Baumgartner

It was 1992. I was thirty-three years old and fully immersed in life: family, church, neighborhood and business career. But things began stirring in Anne and me, and we were exploring- just wondering, really- whether God might be calling us into pastoral ministry. I had lunch one day with a veteran pastor, and shared one of my many areas of self-doubt…preaching. “If I was a pastor, I’m afraid I would run out of things to talk about.” My wise friend smiled and said “Dan, if you preach out of God’s scripture, you’ll be fine. It never runs dry.”

He was absolutely right. Scripture never runs dry, particularly if we remember Eugene Peterson’s admonition that “we read scripture for revelation…not information.” We read more to be involved with God than simply informed about Him. There is something mysterious, downright sacramental about the text of scripture. We can experience God in the work of the Spirit through the text.

Several months ago now, I felt a little dryness in my own quiet times, and for some reason I had the thought, “Pray the Psalms.” Okay. Except that I didn’t have a clue what that really meant.

The first day, I sat down with Psalm 1, read it, and opened my journal to write. The only prayer that came to me was about three sentences long. The next day, I did the same with Psalm 2. Then Psalm 3. Last week I finished with Psalm 150. Over the course of those months, my prayers differed wildly. Sometimes they reflected much of what was in the individual Psalm. Sometimes just one word caught my attention so strongly that most of my written prayer related to that. It changed from day to day.

By the end of my odyssey I felt like I’d regularly been with God, and whatever quiet time “dryness” I’d started with had been submerged by an abundance of God’s voice pouring out of the Psalms. It had happened almost imperceptibly.

In order for God to meet us in scripture on a regular basis, it seems rational that we would read it on a regular basis. All of it. Not our favorite parts, not just the New Testament, not the stories with a happy ending, but we must be immersed, one way or another, in all of scripture.

One way that Christians have protected the reading of all of scripture is called a “lectionary” system. There are a number of different ones, but lectionaries provide scripture readings and sermon texts for each Sunday of the year in a three year cycle. The positive side of using one is that it forces a congregation to read widely, even the uncomfortable texts. But lectionaries aren’t failproof. Some still don’t cover particular books or passages. And they can encourage an academic, routine reading of the Bible instead of a live conversation.

Many evangelical churches (that’s us) never use the lectionary, preferring instead to come up with a steady stream of “topical” sermon series: the Bible on relationships, the Bible on sexuality, the Bible on spiritual disciplines, etc. These have the advantage of appearing more immediately “relevant” to life issues. But this presents an even greater danger of only reading some parts of scripture. It also encourages the tendency to “proof text,” that is, knowing what your topic is and finding scriptures to back it up, as opposed to letting the text speak.

In these last eight years Bethany has rarely used the lectionary (a few times during Lent or Advent) and we have infrequently preached “topical” series (Community, Prayer, Facing Fear, Tough Questions.) Most of the time, we have worked through a book of the Bible. In fact, I keep a list of sermon scriptures, and in these eight years we have preached out of: Philippians, Gospel of John, I & II Samuel, I Corinthians, Exodus/Numbers/Joshua, I & II Peter, Genesis 1-11, Gospel of Matthew, Ephesians, Isaiah, Hebrews, Gospel of Luke, the Minor Prophets (Hosea, Amos, Micah, Zephaniah, Zechariah, Malachi), Galatians, Jeremiah and Revelation.

There is a method to the madness. You can see that we normally move back and forth from New Testament to Old Testament. We have intentionally tried to tackle some “tough” (and often ignored) sections: the Minor Prophets left us gasping for hope, and Revelation shook any ideas we had of a “soft” gospel.

Why do we do this? At first glance, it may not seem as exciting as topical themes. We won’t get mentioned in any “how to grow your church” seminars.

Fast results are not guaranteed. But the kind of growth we are after is deep, not broad.

We are trying to listen for God’s voice carefully, attentively and widely, knowing that growing deeper in faith is a cumulative process. Following Jesus is a lifetime journey.

And, thanks be to God, my friend was right. The Bible never runs dry.

So, starting on April 22nd we began digging into the book of Genesis by reading the stories found in chapters 12-50. We’ll meet God through people like Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, Hagar, Ishmael, Jacob, Leah, Rachel and Joseph. I’ve called the series “Scoundrels, Doubters and Saints.” Be careful. If we pay close attention, we’ll no doubt find ourselves in that lineup as well.