Nine Things The Book of Common Prayer Can Do For You: Reasons To Attend to the BCP

Others have probably done a much better job at this (please do comment with links!), but a friend provoked me to say that a lot more BCP in our lives would help us with many issues. So I thought I might try to spell out some of the way the BCP might do us good:

(1) Reading The Book of Common Prayer is an education. If you are vaguely familiar with The Bible and Shakespeare, it would be worth acquainting yourself with The Book of Common Prayer. A quick look at The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations with prove this.

(2) The language is wonderful and time honoured. It has helped to shape us without our knowing it. Britishness owes much to this book, and its influence has gone global. If you want to speak in public or persuade, you might be moved in sundry ways and places to consider the devices and desires of The Prayer Book. It has the benefit of being highly memorable so you can stock your mind with these things.

(3) The Book of Common Prayer was intended to be a reasonably complete resource for what we would call the spirituality of the nation. You can find it in material for all ages and stages of life and for all sorts and conditions of men, women and children. The Collects (short prayers) are very suitable for personal use. There are services for daily morning and evening use. And much that could be used at any time (for example The Litany or The General Thanksgiving). Birth, marriage, sickness, death and much else besides is all here.  

(4) The prayers and thanksgivings upon several occasions might suit your needs. It is worth checking out what is there should a lack of rain arise. If you are ever going to sea, there’s a whole section for that.

(5) The Book of Common Prayer contains great psychological and pastoral wisdom. Thomas Cranmer, the principal “author” of The Book of Common Prayer had thought about what makes people tick and what they might need.

(6) The Book of Common Prayer is a conduit and container of other material. Cranmer adopted and adapted. The Psalms are here in handy form. The Ten Commandments are included, as well as readings from The New Testament letters and the Gospels in bite sized chunks. Likely your Book of Common Prayer also contains the services for the ordination of Bishops, Priests and Deacons. Carry this one small book with you at all times and you are never without all this and more! The Book of Common Prayer will thus acquaint you not only with The Church of England or with Anglicanism but with much that is common to all Christians.  

(7) There is lots here too for Christian instruction: creeds, a catechism (basic questions and answers), and you probably also have The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion (the closest The Church of England has to a doctrinal basis) included.  

(8) Many from all parties of The Church of England have a deep affection for The Book of Common Prayer. It has a capaciousness which can hold many together and be a vehicle for Christian unity without being a bland vanilla fudge.

(9) The theology of the Book of Common Prayer has been much debated and sometimes claimed by one tribe or another. Whilst some Puritans would not accept it, it is clear that it is basically an Evangelical and Reformed (somewhat Calvinistic) document. You will find here the gospel good news of the grace of God to be received by faith alone: that is, that although we have wandered and strayed from his ways like lost sheep, Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. Forgiveness and comfort are freely offered here.