It is most significant that the first item in Common Worship, the new Directory of Services for the Church of England, is not a whole Liturgy as such, but rather a List of the items that should be within "A Service of the Word" and "A Service of the Word with a Celebration of Holy Communion". By this placement, the doctrine that in the Church of England "common worship" means a common structure with optional and varied content is proclaimed loud and clear.
As can be seen from a perusal of the actual content of The Book of Common Prayer (England 1662; USA 1928) and by noting of the use of "Common Prayer" in the English language since the sixteenth century, the phrase, Common Prayer, has referred, and truly refers, first and foremost to texts, whole texts, wherein there are only a limited number of occasions for choice between canticles and collects. For a time modern liturgists tried to pirate "Common Prayer" and use it of their varied collections of services [the most notorious is the actual title of the 1979 Prayer Book of the ECUSA]. Now it seems that "Common Worship" is the favored phrase in both the Church of England and in the ECUSA Commission on Liturgy & Music for all the materials that are authorized by the respective Churches.
Now the 1979 Prayer Book does not begin like Common Worship (2000) with a List (Structure) of items for the creation of a local Liturgy but it does contain such on pages 400 to 401, under the title, "An Order for Celebrating the Holy Eucharist." Here "the People and Priest":
Gather in the Lord's Name
Proclaim and Respond to the Word of God
Pray for the World and the Church
Exchange the Peace
Prepare the Table
Make Eucharist
Break the Bread
Share the Gifts of God
They choose from authorized material appropriate ingredients to place under these headings. This form of service created locally for local needs was not, however, in 1979 recommended for use as the principal service for Sunday. However, much has happened since 1979 and this "prophetic" inclusion in 1979 of this Structure or Shape has become the emerging norm in 2003. Lutherans who are now in "communion" with Episcopalians, and who have long had only a structure and not common texts, are delighted with this development.
Since the publication of the 1979 Prayer Book, there has been a steady stream of further optional services authorized by the General Convention for use with a bishop's permission. The latest are in the two booklets with the title of Enriching our Worship. Apart from being more obviously in expansive language, the emerging liturgies also work on the assumption that they belong to common worship (a phrase now commonly used in the Episcopal Church) and not common prayer, and that common worship includes in principle a vast assortment of services, which have in common (a) a shape and structure; (b) ingredients taken from a large amount of authorized material; (c) a grounding in a particular local situation, and (d) general authorization by the General Convention and local bishop.
So what is planned (though it is happening much more slowly than the Liturgy and Music Commission desire) as that which will hold the ECUSA together as a liturgical Church [apart from its excellent pension fund for clergy and employees] is Common Worship for a multi-racial and multi-lingual Church. This means common authorization of liturgy & music (by General Convention & bishop), common structures for basic services & common ingredients to put into the common structures according to local need and taken from a vast supply of multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-generational materials.
When this is completed (or rather when it is more advanced for it is in essence a never ending task) then the days of the use of standard texts in the ECUSA will be gone (but not forever because stubborn parishes here and there will stick to favored texts from the 1928 BCP).
But what a dramatic CHANGE has occurred in the mindset and ways of Anglicans!
In the 1640s it was the Presbyterian Puritans in England who produced a Directory for Public Worship. In this were provided structures and advice on content and delivery. The Church of England responded to the Puritan ways by The Book of Common Prayer of 1662, wherein common prayer and public worship meant the use of common texts from one authorized book. But things have changed! Today, Episcopalians/Anglicans are leaving their heritage and tradition and seeking to imitate (in an appropriately modern way) the Presbyterians and Lutherans of the seventeenth century!
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)
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