Gospel Highlights

People have a tendency to concoct ideas that are tailor-made to transform their own situations and create a new territory for themselves.  Then, there are those who are given an idea by God that has the potential to change not only the recipient's situation, but the lives of an entire class of people.  One day, at a mere glance at a picture on a wall, Dr. Martha Simmons discovered a need in the African American community.  After identifying that need, she began the tireless work of crafting and molding a symbol of excellence not seen before the world over.  The end result of her toil would be The African American Lectionary, an interminable resource of material designed to engage African Americans, in particular, in educational and fundamental bible principles rarely seen.

Once everything was in place, the question became, “would this idea actually work?”  Not only does it work, but it now serves a boundless community of people with 1000s of pages of reference material that is free of charge to anyone willing to use it.  At the click of a mouse, priceless information can be downloaded and printed for use in most any public setting, and the response has been extraordinary.

In an exclusive interview, Dr. Simmons brings to light the foundation on which The African American Lectionary was built, why her dogged determination helped birth her mission and some of the people she has leaned upon to make this dream a life-changing reality.

Gospel Highlights: On a personal note, I would like to commend you for the awesome work that you have done by bringing this awesome resource to the forefront.  How did you come up with the idea of the lectionary and how did everything come together to get it started?

Dr. Martha Simmons: I was doing doctoral studies in Boston at Boston University.  One of my professors had a picture in his office, and under the picture it said, “The Last Team For The Revised Common Lectionary,” and it listed the dates and so on.  So I [asked] him, “were there any African Americans on that team?”  He looked at me and he said, “no, there were not,” and I asked him how could that be.  He paused for a minute and he said, “it is unfortunate, but to tell you the truth, if African Americans really want a lectionary that works for them, they are going to have to create it.”  I thought about it, and I was mad for about five minutes.  But, I remembered the saying, “do not get mad, get even!”  He was probably right because the Revised Common Lectionary, though used by a lot of black people who are in denominations such as Methodist, Presbyterian and Lutheran, they only use it to get one scripture out of it and go on.  So I said to myself, “we really do not use the lectionary, so what would a lectionary look like that black folk would enjoy using?”  So I spent about eighteen months looking at every lectionary out there that is on the web, every book and everything else.  Then, I called a woman at the Lily Foundation.  I [asked] her, “I think we should put a lectionary online, will the Lily Foundation fund something like this?”  She told me to put together a team to plan it out and they would give me planning money.  So, I called five or six scholars and told them I would pay them to help me plan out a lectionary.  I put together the basic structure, put the pieces in place and in December, 2007, Lily gave a funding grant after the planning grant of just about $2,000,000 to go do it.

Gospel Highlights: For all those who may not be familiar with a lectionary , would you explain to them what it is and all that it entails?

Dr. Martha Simmons: Historically, a lectionary has been a series of scriptures put together, by which you can preach through what is known as “the Christian calendar.”  The most well known lectionaries , which is the Revised Common Lectionary, provides four scriptures: a psalm, an Old Testament reading, a New Testament reading and a reading from the gospels.  Basically, their intent is to allow preachers to preach through the Bible in a year.  They go every Sunday of the calendar year.  So, that is what a typical lectionary looks like.  What the African American Lectionary [does] is different.  We focused on the issues that most concern black folk and the annual days that we celebrate most often, regardless of denomination or if you are non-denominational.  That is how we set ours up, around those annual days and issues that affect us.  With the Revised Common Lectionary, you will never see Election Day, but I was NOT about to let us [elect] our first Black president and not put Election Day on the lectionary.  It was not going to happen!  Election Day for 2008 was one of the most downloaded pieces because you can download everything that is on the site.  It was one of the most downloaded pieces that we have had in nineteen months.  Freddie Haynes, who pastors Friendship-West (Baptist Church) in Dallas, did the sermon commentary for Election Day.  If you go to the website, there is a video that takes us from Africa to President Obama standing on a stage as a possibility, with Oprah Winfrey praying.  I am telling you, it will bring tears to your eyes.  Those are the kinds of things that we do at the African American Lectionary.