There are a number of great resources available to worship leaders and preachers, we’ve collated a number of them here to help you in your role.

Top 3

Working Preacher is a website that hosts podcasts, commentaries and reflections on the bible for preachers and teachers. One of the most invaluable resources online.

Insights Magazine is the magazine of the Synod of NSW and ACT, it also has a regular lectionary reflections resource with reflections written by a number of great people from NSW and the ACT. You can find the reflections under the Features Menu.

Bill Loader’s Lectionary & Preaching website, “first thoughts on passages from the Gospels and the Epistles in the lectionary.” This is one of the best online collections of reflections on scripture and it’s from an intelligent Australian voice, a resource that is a “must visit” for people planning for worship each week.

The Rest

With Love To The World is a daily reader written by Australians for Australians, it is also available as an app for use on Apple and Android phones/tablets. Daily reflections on the Revised Common Lectionary are written by Australian Ministers, Deacons, Pastors, Scholars and members and made available to you asa quarterly booklet (GUC received 10 per quarter) or as an App. This isn’t technically a web resource, but we’ll list it here because of the App.

Disrupt Worship is a great website with regular reflections on the lectionary readings for the week. It occasionally misses a week or two, but it’s a great place to check out if you’re looking for an alternative way to enter the scripture.

Textweek.com has been operating for many years now and is one of the most helpful resources around. Textweek collates sermons, liturgies, prayers, articles, children reflections, images, videos… The website is in a state of flux at the moment due to the curator’s personal life but it is still one of the most helpful resources out there. 

Howard Wallace’s Old Testament Weekly Lectionary Readings is a great & growing collection of reflections on the Old Testament readings in the RCL. The comments are the result of an engagement with the text by the writer, bearing in mind the historical and literary context of the readings, the other readings set for the week, the season in the Christian year, and events that are taking place around us.

Anna Grant Henderson’s Old Testament Readings Website is no longer being updated by Anna, but it’s still full of great and useful reflections on the Old Testament readings within the Lectionary by a really intelligent and insightful Australian OT scholar.

Bruce Prewer’s collection of Lectionary Liturgy and Sermon resources is a fantastic and very useful site full of resources ready for adaption and use.  Bruce is a retired minister within the UCA.

Howard Wallace’s Old Testament Lectionary Resources.  Howard is a Minister in the Uniting Church in Australia and formerly Professor of Old Testament in the Centre for Theology and Ministry, Synod of Victoria and Tasmania. These reflections are a great resource for people exploring the Old Testament readings from the RCL.

There are some great books that are helpful in sermon & Worship preparation and in helping people think about preaching and teaching, here are a few.

• With Love To The World is a daily reader written by Australians for Australians, it is also available as an app for use on Apple and Android phones/tablets. Daily reflections on the Revised Common Lectionary are written by Australian Ministers, Deacons, Pastors, Scholars and members and made available to you asa quarterly booklet (GUC received 10 per quarter) or as an App.

• God Be In My Mouth by Doug Gay is a great book on preaching and worship, highly recommended.

• Preaching God’s Transforming Justice is a three book series of sermons and reflections on the Revised Common Lectionary.

• Twelve Months Of Sundays by Tom Wright is a great collection of short reflections by scholar NT Wright.

• Connections is a resource that includes a variety of voices, all exploring the scripture readings from the RCL. They release them Avery few months to stay ahead of the lectionary. Available on Kindle and as a printed resource. It can be expensive, but is really useful.

• A Preacher’s Guide to Lectionary Sermon Series – Volume 1: Thematic Plans for Years A, B, and C comes highly reccomended and is a collection of sermons edited by Amy Butler.

If you’re looking for assistance in creating liturgies, writing prayers, putting together an order of service or reflections with children here are some great resources to help you in your job.

Top 5

• Spill The Beans is a beautifully designed and prepared resource for people interested in developing all-age worship within their congregation. Spill The Beans includes prayers, litanies, liturgies, discussion points, reflections, stories and more. Issue 2 and Issue 37 cover the current lectionary cycle.

• Laughing Bird a gift to the wider Church from the South Yarra Community Baptist Church in Melbourne, Australia. Laughing Bird is a lectionary based resource with Australian paraphrases of scripture, liturgy and prayers.

• The Billabong is a beautiful, simple blog by Jeff Shrowder, a retired minister within the UCA in  Victoria. The Billabong hosts a collection of poetry, prayer, responsive liturgies and Psalms for use within the context of worship.

• Textweek.com has been operating for many years now and is one of the most helpful resources around. Textweek collates sermons, liturgies, prayers, articles, children reflections, images, videos… The website is in a state of flux at the moment due to the curator’s personal life but it is still one of the most helpful resources out there.

• The Church of Scotland’s Weekly Worship material is an awesome resource of themes, prayers, sermon ideas and more (it also occasionally includes work from Spill The Beans mentioned above). Be aware their seasons don’t sync with ours, so when its spring and they’re giving thanks for flowers we’ll be getting cold here. Still, it’s a great resource.

The Rest:

• Lectionary Liturgies is a fantastic site where the author, Thom Shuman shares his lectionary based liturgies for people to use within their worship context. Thom also runs another site, Prayers4Today that shares prayers for use in personal and corporate worship.

• Liturgies Online is Moira Laidlaw’s website and hosts a large collection of lectionary-themed liturgies (including prayers and hymn suggestions) for use by worship leaders and preachers. Moira is based within the UCA in Queensland

• The World Council of Churches Prayer Cycle is a weekly prayer resource for use by the Church, it includes prayers that can be read out in worship, for personal prayer and weekly intercessory prayer ideas.

• Sacredise is a great source of shared liturgical material, prayers, reflections, sermons and song ideas for progressive congregations. Well worth checking out when you’re curating worship.

• Ten Minutes on a Tuesday is a collection of resources developed for worship leaders and preachers by the Methodist Church of New Zealand. It is given in Word format to allow you to edit and rework the material for your own context and worship style.

• Liturgy Link is a shared resource, a community of people providing prayers, ideas, sermon thoughts and more for people following the Revised Common Lectionary.

• Mustard Seeds is a collection of lectionary based resources and reflections for people leading worship and/or preaching written by Rev Ann Scull from the UCA in Victoria.  On Mustard Seeds you’ll find ideas for children’s talks, themes, activities to run, liturgies for use, videos to use, stories to tell, images for use and book resources to assist with the worship leader each week.

• David Beckswith’s liturgy and worship website has a large collection of sermon, hymn suggestions and liturgy ideas all sorted into the 3 year lectionary cycle for use by worship leaders and preachers. David’s based within the UCA in Melbourne.

• The Assembly’s Worship Working Group has compiled new resources and guidelines to be used by Uniting Church congregations and Presbyteries. They are available online here: New Worship Resources 2018

There are a number of great resources available to worship leaders and preachers, we’ve collated a number of them here to help you in your role.

Top 3

By The Well

By The Well is a new Australian podcast with Fran Barber and Robyn Whitaker. The podcast often invites speakers, preachers, theologians and teachers in to help explore the readings in the week’s lectionary.

BTW has quickly become an invaluable resource to preachers and teachers everywhere.

Sermon Brainwave by Working Preacher

Sermon Brainwave is a conversational podcast with Rolf Jacobson, Karoline Lewis, Joy J. Moore, and Matt Skinner. Each week the four educators present the scripture readings and share how they would approach the week’s readings.

Sermon Brainwave has been going for many years, long enough for you to go back through the years and listen to previous episodes the same readings. It also is a part of the Working Preacher website which has written articles on readings and themes for preachers to use as inspiration.

Pulpit Fiction

Pulpit Fiction is hosted by Robb and Eric who curate a podcast with guest presenters who reflect on the readings from the Hebrew Scriptures, including the Psalms while they discuss how they connect with the Gospel and Epistle readings for the week.

The podcast has been gong since 2013, so has a few years under its belt with multiple episodes and show notes available to help you with exploring the bible.

The Rest

Tea with Two Revs

The Tea With Two Revs podcast is a project of Rev Ann Key and Rev Amanda Nicholas reflecting on the readings from the Revised Common Lectionary. This podcast is based around our weekly preaching preparation and practice. Join us each week as we share a cuppa and a chat about what is coming up.

Strangely Warmed

The Strangely Warmed podcast comes from the people behind Crackers and Grapejuice, Taylor Mertins engages with the readings from the Revised Common Lectionary without staled glass language.

Barefeet Followers

Mark Beresford (Mosaic Baptist Gungahlin) and Darren Wright (Gungahlin Uniting) have been releasing a audio recording for a few weeks, it isn’t a “podcast” yet, we’re just getting ourselves into the pattern of meeting and talking but you can access the recordings here