Introduction to the Lectionary Companion – 60.1
Sally Ann McKinsey
Year B (2026–2027)
There is much to pray for these days. When we cannot find the words, Scripture teaches us to pray. Contributors to this edition have offered approaches to liturgy that use Scripture as a “school of prayer” and give permission to repeat spoken patterns, that we may learn the text and the liturgy by heart as it accompanies us on our way in both weariness and wonder. These suggestions for each week and season of the liturgical year are meant to serve as conversation partners in your own process of thinking about liturgy, preaching, and music for worship. May they prove adaptable to your unique context, and may they enliven your practice.
In this issue you will find weekly and seasonal suggestions for liturgy, music, and art responding to readings from the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B. I am grateful for the musicians who have offered a wide range of ideas for music, from congregational song to anthems for adult, youth, and children’s choirs to organ music. I give thanks for the work of Phillip Morgan, music editor, whose efforts have been vital to this edition and to the journal.
Liturgy writers for this edition have followed patterns that teach us all to pray. Each week they have offered a call to worship and prayers of intercession. The call to worship uses repeated responses for each season and one-line summaries or language from each of the texts for the day between repeated responses. Preachers may want to adapt or modify these one-line leader parts based on the direction of the sermon or study of the texts for the day.
Prayers of intercession also use patterns for the congregation to learn in time through repetition. This approach focuses on the act of intercessory prayer itself, on approaching God corporately each week with confidence and humility, as the psalmists have taught us. This form also promotes vocal participation while reducing the need for printed words, since responses are repeated over one or more seasons and within each prayer. Contributors and editors have developed this pattern with accessibility concerns in mind, hoping to enrich our prayer life as communities of all ages and abilities. Petitions based upon the psalm for the day provide a way for the psalm to teach us to pray. Over the course of several weeks, the petitions grow to make a full library of prayers. Leaders may choose to adapt these prayers for their own context, adding concerns of the community. Worship planners may also choose to use petitions in more expansive ways, keeping silence after each petition, providing a way for worshipers to add their own prayers, or using them as a form for nonverbal ways of praying.
Seasonal liturgy provides options for other elements of the worship service, including sequences of confession and pardon, thanksgiving for baptism, and eucharistic prayers. These pieces may be repeated each week in a season.
This annual issue always teaches the value of collaborative work and reminds us that we are not alone in the planning and practice of worship. May worship both comfort and challenge us as we learn God’s love and enact God’s justice together. Blessings in your worship planning in the year ahead!
Sally Ann McKinsey
Managing Editor
