Each Friday, we will post linking ideas between a book written for children or adolescents with at least three of the upcoming lectionary passages in the Revised Common Lectionary.
Each post will include a link to a site which will give summaries of the book and some reviews. The post itself will highlight particular ways that those books could be used for preaching or teaching with the the lectionary texts.
Our lectionary links are written by Noell Rathbun, a 2010 graduate of Union Presbyterian Seminary. Noell has extensive experience working with children and youth and was also awarded the E. T. George Award for Excellence in Homiletics, Worship and Public Speaking. Noell’s gifts for preaching and teaching and her love of children and youth makes her the perfect writer for this segment of our blog!
Click on “Lectionary Links” in the Category section on the right to locate all blog posts relating books to lectionary passages.
Great idea! It would be better if the suggestions were posted farther in advance so we have time to find the book.
Carolyn, we quickly recognized that posting on Monday before an upcoming Sunday wasn’t going to work. We moved the post date back to Friday hoping that people might be able to find a book on the weekend. We will certainly follow this closely and see if we need to move it back even further. Thanks for the suggestion.
I am so excited about this! I’m a lover of children’sliterature and frequently use it in worship!
Thanks for letting us know. We hope you’ll share some of the books you’ve used!
I found your site through textweek. I generally work about a month ahead. This week I am working on bulletins for Oct 3, 10, and 17 – as my secretary will be out of town on vacation. Any possibilities for working a month ahead?
I am a lover of Children’s Literature and use it in my preaching on a regular basis. Sandy Sasso’s God is One is a favorite.
Thanks for putting together this site.
Leigh, I think working a month ahead is beyond our capabilities right now with the workload on our writer. We have settled on publishing 15 days in advance. In order to get to that, we posted for Oct. 3 today and will post for Oct. 10 tomorrow. The post for Oct. 17 will occur on Friday, Sept. 30 and we’ll be posting weekly on Fridays from then on. We’re hoping that will give people a little more time than we originally provided and still keep us sane with all the other things going on in the blog. Thank you for writing, and we will keep evaluating this as we go along. Working a month ahead is a wonderful dream of ours!
A couple of weeks ago, during a baptism, I used “The Runaway Bunny” with Psalm 139.
I’m also a big fan of Susan Sasso books.
I can really see “The Runaway Bunny” working in that setting and with that scripture! Thanks for letting us know. And I think you’ll be seeing some of Sasso’s books showing up here. We like them too.
Thanks for a great site! Looking forward to the latest updates!
We’re glad you’re finding it helpful! Let us know how you use these or any other children’s books to create lectionary links.
This is a wonderful resource for church preschools to use.
We’re happy that you’re finding it useful!
I am a school librarian…I just discovered this site while I was looking for information about Laura Rankin’s book Ruthie’s Not so Teeney Tiny Lie.
I hope you’ll keep this site active, a town nearby me now has three church based preschools, I’d love to recommend this site to them if you are keeping it active.
We certainly plan to keep it active, and we’d be delighted if you’d share it with others.
What wonderful books you have found for children. My adults look forward to the books I do use. I’m like others, I wish we could get things further ahead. Many times with shipping charges, I pay double or more the cost of the books to get in time for worship. Thanks for a wonderful resource for us to us.
We have two students working on directed studies to write these, so very soon we will be posting them a month early! We hope that will help your planning and use of these books.
I just want to thank you for this WONDERFUL resource! I have found many amazing books here–a few have made it into sermons or children’s messages this summer—but more have just made it into our library. I have a four and a half year old daughter, and I’ve shared the link with others with kids the same age. The response–from Jews, Christians and vaguely spiritual folks–is that this is an amazing resource, and so so helpful to parents, too!
What a wonderful ministry this is!
Thank you, Susan. Comments like yours make the work we do on the blog very rewarding!
I’m so glad to read that these links are helpful for y’all!
I’ve found having an amazon prime account ends up saving me money in shipping over the long run. It also helps to have a good relationship with a local bookseller–they’ll often order books they don’t have in stock. Also, you can look up titles on worldcat.org– you type in your zip code and it will show the nearest libraries holding the books you need.
And one last thing, please add any additional books you’ve used to illustrate the text in the comment section for that week… The more resources, the merrier!
I enjoy your column and am excited to see how children’s literature can enhance worship and preaching. My problem is that my library is small and the books need to be ordered from somewhere else in the system. That can take a week or more to arrive – often not arriving until after I have had to make final decisions for worship. Thanks for all of your great work.
I understand your dilemma. We worked hard to change our posting schedule from two weeks in advance to one month in advance to help those of you who are trying to get the books in a timely manner. But sometimes – especially with interlibrary loan – it just isn’t enough time. We’ll continue to see if we can tweak our posting schedule to help you out!