[http://www.churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2011/05/customise-your-church-services-encourages-long-awaited-simple-guide.aspx] Priests and others preparing Church of England worship are being encouraged to customise services to congregations' local needs, in a long-awaited book launched on Tuesday, May 10th by Church House Publishing: Finding Your Way Around Common Worship - a Simple Guide.
The Bishop of Coventry, the Rt Revd Dr Christopher Cocksworth, who contributed a foreword, said: "This book will answer all the questions about Common Worship that you were afraid to ask or didn't even know you needed to ask. I hope that it will soon appear on the desk of everyone who is given the sacred responsibility of preparing forms of worship."
Published between 2000 and 2008, the various volumes of Common Worship - available free online - resource priests and readers with a wide variety of options for church services. Rather than being 'standard' service books, they contain frameworks with numerous resources to make services as relevant as possible to the thousands of parishes that use Common Worship.
Written by the Revd Mark Earey, Co-director of the Centre for Ministerial Formation at the Queen's Foundation, Birmingham, Finding Your Way Around Common Worship is being officially launched tomorrow at a lunchtime seminar at the Christian Resources Exhibition at Sandown Park, Esher.
A few of the points explained in its 149 pages:
You can change the words of Common Worship in places, as long as they are "reverent and seemly" (Canon B 5.3) Holy Communion may be celebrated in contemporary or traditional language Very simple versions of Holy Communion may be celebrated using A Service of the Word with Holy Communion Where you can find the date of Easter for each year until 2030 What are the relative lengths of the eight Eucharistic prayers for Holy Communion Order One.Chapters entitled What Is Common Worship?, Calendar, Lectionary and Collects, Services of the Word, Holy Communion, Initiation Services, Pastoral Services, Daily Prayer, The Common Worship Psalter and Miscellaneous are accompanied by valuable features such as: simple tables and charts outlining key features or elements of services; quick tips on where to find important information; a section answering frequently asked questions; and a glossary unpacking terms like Nunc Dimittis, frontal and lavabo.
Published by Church House Publishing, Finding Your Way Around Common Worship (ISBN 978 0 7151 4236 3) costs £9.99 and is available from Christian booksellers or direct from the publishers.
Notes
The main volumes of Common Worship are:
Common Worship: Services and Prayers for the Church of England (2000)
Common Worship: President's Edition (2000)
Common Worship: Pastoral Services (2000, 2005)
Common Worship: Daily Prayer (2005)
Common Worship: Christian Initiation (2006)
Common Worship: Ordination Services (2006)
Common Worship: Times and Seasons (2006)
Common Worship: Festivals (2008)
The worship material was drafted by the Church of England's Liturgical Commission, and either authorised by General Synod (sometimes with amendments) or commended for use by the House of Bishops.
As well as being published in printed form and via Visual Liturgy software by Church House Publishing, the Common Worship texts are available free online.
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