The Church Year in cyberland
Since this is the beginning of the Church Year, it seems appropriate to ask the question of how one keeps track of the liturgical cycle on your computer. I am all in favor of keeping and planning these things in advance as much as possible. There are numerous ways to do this. We’ll start with the three year series, and then do the one year series.
First of all, the LCMS Commission on Worship has provided Word Documents for the three-year lectionary that include all of the dates and other information available. You may find all of those available online by CLICKING HERE.
If you prefer to go “old school,” Concordia Publishing House has a really nice chart available for your use HERE.
CPH has also done a fantastic job of making the three-year lectionary available in both Google Calendar, Outlook & iCal. Go HERE to find them.
Another wonderful resource is that Logos (makers of some of the finest bible software anywhere) has a free lectionary viewer that includes the one year and three year lectionaries from LSB. HERE IT IS.
Now on to the one year lectionary:
The LCMS Commission on Worship page has a number of great resources for the one-year lectionary as well. You’ll find it HERE.
Pastor Mark Schlamann has edited the COW chart and included it with the calendar dates and put them into a nifty color coded Microsoft Excel file. You can download it here: 09 10 one yr guide
Mr. Stan Lemon maintains a great website called Sanctus.org. This site includes all of the one year lectionary in calendar format, plus in a Google Calendar that will work with iCal or Outlook or nearly any calendar program. More than that, he has it setup so that it will link you to specific bible translations. It is a great site that I highly recommend. He also has it self so it works very well on an iPhone or any other smart phone with internet access.
Another great program that works with both the one year and three year lectionary is Leitourgia. It is available in both Windows and Mac formats, and uses many different lectionaries. You can download a trial copy and try it out to see if you like it.
There are numerous blogs and other sites that provide commentary and other info on the Church Year, but I think this is enough to get us started. What do you use for the Church Year?