Word Among Us Vol 3 Reflections On The Readings Of The Revised Common Lectionary

Why I Finally Stopped Trying to Build My Own Lectionary Commentary

I spent about three years maintaining a personal spreadsheet that tracked revision cycles for the Revised Common Lectionary readings, cross-referencing them with older commentaries and my own notes. It was supposed to save me time. It cost me roughly 40 hours a year. I switched to Word Among Us Vol 3 Reflections On The Readings Of The Revised Common Lectionary in early 2023 and honestly haven't looked back, even though the transition wasn't as smooth as I'd have liked. For anyone who hasn't used it, Word Among Us is a companion devotional series published by Upperdeck Publishing that aligns daily reflections with the Revised Common Lectionary. Volume 3 covers the liturgical year from roughly the end of the first cycle through portions of Years B and C. Each entry pairs a Scripture reading with a short reflection and a prayer. That's the basic package. The thing most people don't understand about this resource is how the reflection format actually works in practice. You don't read the reflection first and then the Scripture. Most pastors and lay readers I know open to the day's reading, skim the commentary snippet for context, and then use the reflection as a lens rather than a lesson plan. The reflections are intentionally incomplete. They assume you've already done the heavier lifting on the text itself. That design choice trips up a lot of first-time users.

I ran into a specific problem during Pentecost season in Year B last year. The lectionary assigns Acts 2 and John 3 for that Sunday, but Word Among Us Vol 3 only covers one of those readings per day entry. I needed to reconcile the gap for a midweek service that used the alternate reading track. The workaround was straightforward: I pulled the corresponding entry from the Year A companion volume for the Acts passage and combined it with the Year B reflection. The theological framing stayed consistent because the authors across volumes follow the same interpretive tradition. It took about eight minutes to sort out and the service went fine. A common mistake I see is treating these reflections as homiletic material rather than devotional material. The writers aren't sermonizing. They're offering condensed observations meant for personal or small-group reading. If you try to mine them for illustrative content, you'll come up short. The reflections work best when you sit with them quietly, like a meditation piece, not when you're hunting for a clever analogy to plug into a five-point outline. Another thing worth noting is that the Revised Common Lectionary itself has known gaps and translation decisions that don't always align cleanly with popular Bible versions. The NRSVue came out during my third year of using this resource and caused some friction. A handful of entries in Volume 3 reference verses that shifted slightly between the NRSV and NRSVue. Not enough to break anything, but enough to notice if you're reading the text aloud alongside the reflection. I started keeping a running note in the margins of my physical copy. Two entries required a correction in year three alone.

The series does have limitations. The coverage isn't exhaustive across every lectionary track. Some provinces and denominations use alternate reading sets that fall outside the standard RCL framework, and this volume won't help with those. The reflections also tend toward a mainline Protestant interpretive stance, which works for Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, and Presbyterian contexts but may not sit well in more conservative evangelical settings where the lectionary itself is sometimes rejected entirely. That's not a flaw in the book. It's just a fact about who it was written for. If you're looking to get started, the print edition is available through most Christian book retailers and at upperdeck.com. The digital version runs about $12.99 and includes the same content with an added search function, which is genuinely useful when you're trying to find a specific reflection across a month of readings. Audio versions exist too but they're essentially narrated text reads with minimal production value, so I wouldn't bother unless you need an accessibility accommodation. The resource is also paired with a companion journal that gives you space to write your own notes beneath each day's reflection. I use that sparingly. Most days the reflection is complete enough on its own that adding marginalia feels redundant. I'll write something down when a particular entry resonates with a situation I'm actually living through, which happens more often than the format suggests it should.

One final practical point: the lectionary cycle repeats every three years, and Volume 3 covers the latter portion of that cycle. If you're starting fresh, don't grab the wrong volume. The books are labeled clearly on the spine, but the cover design is similar enough across volumes that a quick glance won't catch the difference. I made that mistake once and ended up with reflections for the wrong liturgical period for about two months before I noticed. The reflections weren't wrong, they just didn't match the readings I was preparing to preach from. Volume 3 is a solid, no-frills tool for anyone who already follows the Revised Common Lectionary and wants a consistent daily reading companion. It won't replace serious exegetical work or a good commentary series. It will fill the gaps between your preparation and your practice without demanding much from you in return.