Daily Prayer

The C of E website is very helpful for those wanting to use an authorised form of Morning or Evening Prayer. It includes both Common Worship and The Book of Common Prayer and the appropriate seasonal material, Collects etc. and the lectionary readigs are automatically included. Instead of Daily Prayer, The Lectionary and Bible and a good deal of flicking about and bookmarks and so on, all you need is this one website. Fantastic. Now all we need is free wireless access in our churches! :)

Song Choices

As well as fitting in with the season and the Bible passages, I sometimes have the following categories of songs in mind:

• well known rousing hymns (especially for starting and finsihing the service)
• 20th century songs - e.g. Graham Kendrick
• songs as up to the minute as we can manage
• children's songs
• metrical versions of the psalms

Of course what is in our hymn books / serivce books is an influence. I reckon one extra song sheet per service is enough! A screen and Powerpoint would certainly help.

You might also want songs that perform certain liturgical functions of fit in certain parts of the service:

• praise
• thanksgiving
• confession
• creed
• offering
• preparation for Word of God or Communion
• response
• prayer
• etc.

Liturgical Query

What does the Extended Preface for use with Eucharistic Prayers A, B and E from Easter Day until the Eve of the Ascension mean when it says:

Jesus Christ... restored in men and women the image of your glory.
He has placed them once more in paradise
and opened to them the gate of life eternal.

Common Worship, p317

Do you think Christ has placed us again in paradise?

Has Common Worship succumbed to an over-realised eschatology?

The liturgical provision for...

Archbishop Cranmer complained:

the manifold changings of the Service [in the pre-Reformation liturgies], was the cause, that to turn the Book only was so hard and intricate a matter, that many times there was more business to find out what should be read, than to read it when it was found out.

The Book of Common Prayer, Concerning the service of the church, page ix

It took more time or trouble to work out what you were supposed to be reading than to read it!

Sursum Corda

On the exhortation to Lift Up Your Hearts at the Supper, see:

John Calvin, 'Form for Administering the Sacraments' in Treatises on the Sacraments (Christian Focus, reprint 2002), p121f; Institutes 4.17.36

Matthew Henry on John 11:41.

And, John Flavel on John 20 in The Fountain if Life, Discourse 40.

(cited in Maclean, Lord's Supper, p189f & n12, p256)

Sermon & Supper

Note to self: it might be worth thinking about the relationship between Word and Sacrament in a Brethren context. Malcolm Maclean describes the Christian Brethren Assembly he belonged to where the Breaking of Bread Communion Service was held weekly, "was not led by a clergyman, and did not involve a sermon (although there were several devotional comments made on biblical passages by a number of individuals)."

The Lord's Supper (Mentor, 2009) p9

I guess the Brethren don't have a formal liturgy either? Do you happen to know what happens? Does 1 Corinthians 11 get read every week?

Sing Psalms

I just don't understand why we, the conservative Evangelical, really Bible-believing Christians, don't sing the Psalms (Col 3:16). It might be hard and difficult and unpopular, but we would usually say that we don't want to give up on the Bible and go for the easy popular sold out to our culture approach.

I know there are lots of lovely excellent hymns and songs out there, and I'm all for singing them, but what about the 150 God-breathed perfect songs we have in the Scriptures? Shouldn't we prioritise them? Or at least give them a regular place?

How many Psalms do you know by heart? And how many hymns or contemporary worship songs do you know? Is that good and right and helpful? Wouldn't singing the Psalms be an great way to have the Word of Christ dwell in us richly?

So what are we going to do about it? And when?

In place of a call to worship / Scripture sentences

Some words based on verses from Psalm 51 that I used to open the service on Sunday evening:

Have mercy on us, O God, according to your unfailing love.

Create in us pure hearts, and renew steadfast spirits within us.

Do not cast us from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from us.

Restore to us the joy of your salvation and grant us willing spirits, to sustain us.

O Lord, open our lips, and our mouths will declare your praise.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Scary Liturgy

According to Rev'd Doug Wilson's weblog:

Jerome commented that in the early church, when visitors used to come the church, they were commonly frightened at the Amen -- it had the sound of thunder, said by people who understood it.

The liturgical responses at Holy Trinity can be pleasingly hearty and lively, but to my knowledge that has never happened yet. May the Amen of the church put the fear of God into people!

York church celebrates medieval mass

The Church of England Newspaper (CEN) reports in brief on p3 that All Saints North Street, York was packed out for The Mass of Our Lady which has not been celebrated since 1558. They fail to mention that it is presumably completely illegal?

An English Prayer Book

Why didn't any of the fun bits of the BCP (the commination, churching of women, prayers for rain etc.) get the modern language treatment in the English Prayer Book or Common Worship?

Mindless Repetition

If I may say so, if you are finding part of the service to be mindless repetition, you should think about it! The problem may very well be in your mind not in the repetition!

Illegal Sign of the Cross

I understand that under the Lincoln judgement it is illegal for a Church of England minister to make the sign of the cross while conducting public worship?

Commentated Mass

One of my fellow ministers explained to me that in her church, once a year they have a "commentated mass" where they explain the order and symbolism of all the elements.

You might think evangelical worship already has too much pointless commentary ("... now we are going to sing another hymn...") but if we had good stuff to say about what we do and why, I think this would be a very useful exercise.

It would also be good to have some written material always available explaining the liturgy and its covenant renewal structure for the newcomer or the curious.

Liturgical Reform Programme steps 1 & 2

I stand by my earlier comments about designing new furniture for a sinking ship but I think the top 2 liturgical reforms I'd like to see are:

(1) The full scale authorisation of a good modern language version of the BCP. Something like the English Prayer Book (Church Society / OUP) would be great. It seems to me that Common Worship accepts the principle with the modern language BCP communion service. Since all Anglicans love the BCP and claim it for themselves, who could possibly object? Come on, synod, vote now, you know you want to.

(2) The authorisation of a Lord's Supper service according to an explicitly covenantal renewal pattern using lots of Scripture, traditional texts (such as The Apostles' Creed) and some permitted variations.

By the way, why does the BCP communion service have us saying the Lord's Prayer twice?

English Prayer Book: allowed?

Do you think An English Prayer Book (OUP, 1994), the work of The Church Society, which is largely a modern language adaptation of the Book of Common Prayer and is intended to preserve the doctrine of the BCP and 39 Articles, as the note about Interpretation on p4 states, falls within the discretion allowed to the minister under the provision of canon B5?

Could a PCC and incumbent decide that it does (c.f. Common Worship, Authorization, p vii)?

The question would be, is it a matter of "substantial importance... according to particular circumstances" (Canon B5, p20, 10/00)? Is "no one understands the BCP (here) anymore" a sufficiently particular circumstance?

If a question is raised, the bishop may give "such pastoral guidence, advice or directions as he may think fit, but such reference shall be without prejudice to the matter in question being the subject matter of proceedings under the Ecclesiastical Jurisdication Measure 1963." Does anyone know if a Bishop has every said anything relevent (to this!!!) or if there have ever been proceedings?

Speak up at the back there!

Our church services are pretty liturgical and the liturgy is good stuff - most of it from the Bible or there abouts. So let's do it approprietly: loudly, enthusiasticly for the creed, as if we really do believe it, hearty deepfelt "Amen"s, air-punching, "Lift Up Your Hearts" cheers, that sort of thing. Maybe we need to practice our war cries. Perhaps see how they do it down the football stadium.

As Revd Douglas Wilson puts it:

Those against liturgical worship will often caricature it as lifeless, cold, and dead. But too often the friends of open liturgy do everything they can to confirm the many prejudices. They mutter the creed, instead of wanting to shout it from the housetops. They mumble through psalms or hymns, rather than singing them the way they were written to be sung. The organist thinks her job description is to be a ball and chain attached to any hymn that threatens to get too robust. Instead of roaring amen at the conclusion of prayers, the corporate sentiment appears to be huh" (Mother Kirk, p. 151).