The Women's Lectionary Launch!

The launch day for The Women’s Lectionary: Preaching the Women of the Bible throughout the Year is tomorrow! I have so many feelings about this, including excitement that it's finally almost here, and amazement at just how long a process this has been.

The first spark of the idea was in November of 2017. My partner and I were driving home from Thanksgiving dinner and I was talking about preaching, like I often do. I told him how I felt torn between preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) and preaching about women in the Bible. I appreciated the community of the RCL, but folks in my church loved the sermon series I did on women.

He said, "Well, why don't you write your own lectionary?"

I loved the idea of writing a lectionary centering women, and I wondered if it was possible. I spent the rest of the long weekend writing a draft of a calendar of preaching texts for every Sunday and holy day in the liturgical calendar.

A few days later, I met with Ted Smith, professor of preaching and ethics at Candler School of Theology (and my boss). I showed him my calendar for The Women’s Lectionary and he thought it was a great idea. He also suggested that I write commentaries for each of the lectionary texts.

So I got started on that! I preached from the draft lectionary each week and used the exegesis to write commentaries. Slowly a book began to take shape.

When I had enough commentaries for a sample, I started working on a book proposal. I had so much help at every stage of writing, including this one. My friend Anna let me use her house to write. Author and editor friends gave me invaluable advice.

By early December of 2018, I felt like the book proposal was pretty solid, so I submitted it to Westminster John Knox Press. I will always be grateful that they took a chance on me, an unknown author.

Once WJK agreed to publish The Women’s Lectionary, things started to go pretty quickly. The goal was to release it in the fall of 2020, so I rearranged my schedule to write four commentaries a week from June until November.

It was a lot of work (and I relied on my partner to take care of many things at home!), but I managed to get the draft manuscript in by the deadline. We moved forward with the editing process, expecting that the book would come out in October 2020.

But we all know what 2020 was like. The Women’s Lectionary, like so many other books, was delayed due to Covid-19. It was such an uncertain time for everything, including publishing.

We all waited. And then, in September of 2020, I got good news : The Women’s Lectionary would be published in August of 2021! We picked up where we had left off—copy edits, production, more edits, and so on. Everyone was working to make the book come together.

I have learned more than I could have imagined about the publishing process! And it really takes a village to publish a book. I am grateful to everyone who has been a part of making The Women’s Lectionary a reality, which includes so many of you.

Thank you for cheering me on, for asking good questions, and for offering help and advice. You all are part of The Women’s Lectionary.

And so today, on the eve of the official launch, here is my hope: That The Women’s Lectionary will be a resource for everyone who wants to preach about women and feminine images of God. That this book will find its way to the hands that need it.

I hope that people will take The Women’s Lectionary and go forth and preach!