Liturgy and the Only Show in Town – Marion Jenkins

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After 12 years in a small, northern, and somewhat remote, community, and lots of time to ponder, I’ve learned that when you are the “only show in town” for Anglicans, worship planning has many challenges not found in city parishes. In a city you can shop around for a parish that speaks to your soul, whether in uplifting music, style of liturgy, use of the BCP or BAS, etc. In a remote rural setting people come in all shapes, sizes, ethnic backgrounds, musical preferences and preferred liturgical styles.

Eclecticism is the order of the day. Foremost in our minds in planning worship is the challenge of maintaining the integrity of the liturgy while still providing worship that stirs the soul of every person present, at least some of the time. Over time, some principals (not and exhaustive list) emerged that guide us in our planning. These principals will go a long way towards building goodwill and providing uplifting and spiritually enriching worship. While these principles also work in urban settings, when you are the only show in town they are crucial.

Principals

  • Used the authorized books – both of them. We are the only expression of Anglicanism for many kilometres.
  • Morning Prayer is important to some to nurture the soul. Use it, even if you reluctantly forego Eucharist. Find a way of providing it at a time other than the main Sunday service.
  • Ensure that the music is eclectic. In addition to the authorized hymn books, draw on other sources of music. Gospel choruses and Bach chorales both have a place in worship.
  • Solicit and listen to feedback. You cannot respond to unmet liturgical needs if you don’t know about them. Ask for written as well as verbal feedback. Periodically conduct a survey or an evaluation after trying something. (Psst – Calling something an experiment for a trial period and then evaluating is a device I learned from the Rev. Dr. Francis Cooper. It does help with buy-in for a new idea.)
  • Involve lay leadership in the planning.

May all your worship glorify God and stir your soul.

 

A member of Liturgy Canada since 1998 and a member of the Executive for much of that time, Marion retired from Henry Budd College for Ministry at the end of 2016. Marion and her husband, the Rev. Paul Sodtke were the heads of College. Jointly, they led the indigenous theological college in the northern part of the Diocese Brandon in preparing men and women for ministry, both lay and ordained, in their home communities. Marion worshipped at Christ Church, The Pas and was a member of the worship leadership team planning liturgy and music. Marion and Paul have retired to London, Ontario where she now worships at St. Andrew Memorial Anglican Church. Marion previously worked for the Diocese of Huron and the Diocese of Toronto.

What Makes Worship Lutheran?

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by the Rev’d Paul Bosch

I’ve been challenged by Anglican friends in recent days by the question in my title. How can you tell when liturgy is authentically “Lutheran”? Put in other ways: Are there distinctive qualities in Christian worship that can be identified as Lutheran? What constitutes a Lutheran liturgy? Is there anything at all distinctive in worship that calls itself Lutheran? What can you find in Sunday worship in a Lutheran church that’s different from, say, worship in an Anglican church? In a Presbyterian church? A Methodist church? A United Church? Read more →

Lessons, Readings and the Presence of Christ

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by Margaret Bick

 

I can’t remember how old I was when I first heard the phrase “a service of lessons and carols.” I know it wasn’t a part of my childhood. When I did bump into it, I pictured in my mind’s eye a series of brief educational lectures on Christmas themes punctuated by the odd chestnut Christmas carol to keep the crowd awake and involved. The event did not seem very appealing. Scripture readings are still referred to as “lessons” in many quarters today. Now, the Oxford English Dictionary certainly lists “the action of reading” (not necessarily of scripture) first among its meanings for the word. Use of the word to apply to broader teaching situations was also common early on. I suppose that reading aloud from a prepared text must have been a common teaching strategy back then, as it was in my own high school experience. But the modern popular association of the word with a classroom setting exerts itself strongly in the minds of many worshippers.

Words have power. Repeated use of a word with a particular meaning shapes the way we think when it is used. So when we, or our community, have a six- or seven-hundred year history of using the same word to describe both a scripture passage and an educational experience, our perception of the scriptures proclaimed in our Sunday worship necessarily carries a didactic, educational flavour. The arrangement of furniture in our worship spaces supports this educational model of the proclamation of the Word of God – our liturgical assemblies vaguely resembling a 1950s elementary school classroom, or even a 21st century university lecture hall. Worshippers are generally seated in neat rows assertively directing our attention to the area from which the “lesson” is being offered and discouraging any awareness of the rest of the gathered community.

It is my contention that the effect of this word usage and furniture arrangement limits the depth of our understanding of what is actually happening in our Sunday celebration: a meeting, an encounter, a heart-to-heart with the divine. A change in language away from “lessons” and an awareness of the physical arrangement of the worship space can help mould a deeper understanding of this part of the Sunday service.

In our Sunday worship, we gather as the body of Christ to celebrate the paschal mystery of Christ and to deepen our identity, individually and communally, as members of his body. This is not the place for biblical education. Rather it is a place of encounter with the divine. The sharing of scripture in worship is a whole person thing, not just a head thing or brain thing. Where and when possible, our furniture arrangement can support the experience of a shared encounter with the divine. Creating a space in which the community can gather around the Word in some sort of circle, rather than sitting as an audience in front of it, might be challenging, expensive and controversial, but the worship environment always sends a stronger message than anything we can teach.

Creating a suitable atmosphere for such an encounter places great responsibility on those who proclaim the scriptures and on those whose preaching must create a space in which each person present is opened to truly encounter with Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Exegesis and information must take a back seat to speaking to the heart, the longings and circumstances of this present community and each one in it. Proclamation and preaching must remind the community of who they are among one another and in the world. Equally, proclamation and preaching must build them up to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ to the world by their lives.

To the Glory of God? Church Buildings and Faith Formation – Jonathan Massimi

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by Jonathan Massimi

As a priest, I have the privilege and honour of accompanying people on their faith journey from the cradle to the grave. This accompaniment is mainly done through the sacraments.

This year I have had an influx of couples wanting to get married. Typically, these couples are not really connected to the faith community, but want to get married in our church because it’s big, beautiful and makes for great pictures. When I meet with couples the first thing I do is take them on a tour of the church. The reason I do this is not to figure out where the flowers will go, or where the photographers will stand; I take them in as a means of exposing them to the faith.

How does a church tour expose someone to the faith? Great question.

Our church, like many other mainline churches, is rich in symbolism, which speaks of God and our faith journey. For a priest it is a low tech pre-PowerPoint way to talk about life, faith and immerse people into God’s story.

I begin my tour by turning to the bride and saying, “you are not a princess” and then to the groom “you are not a prince” and I continue, “and this is not a castle…this is a church and all that you see here speaks of God.” I continue by explaining to the couple that when they get married in our church they become part of the symbolism, in that the story that is being told at the altar is not the story of the bride and groom or a fairy tale where prince and princess live happily ever after.

The narrative being enacted is the story of Christ and the Church, God and Creation. The church is the stage, the architecture, art and symbolism are the set. The script for the play is the liturgy. Those who participate in the ceremony are actors telling the story of God’s love for Creation and of Christ’s love for the Church.

The intention of this post was not to talk about marriage, but to speak of church architecture and Christian formation.

For me, I think that our buildings play an essential part in forming our faith and our understanding of God. When I sit in our church I am surrounded by God and I am able to worship God through my eyes. The stained glass windows tell the stories of Scripture. The font speaks of a new creation. The memorial plaques remind me of the “communion of saints”; that “great cloud of witnesses” who have lived a life in love and service to God.

As I sit in the pew surrounded by Scripture, carvings of Biblical figures, and the memory of believers who have gone before me, I am able to transcend “self” whereby my story is taken up into God’s Story.
Even when my mind wanders during a service, I look around and “the set” focuses me back on why I’m there and of the God who loves me and sent his Son for us. The reality of the latter quite often smacks me in the face via the glare from the brass cross behind the altar.

I’d like to go back to something I wrote above, “this is a church and all that you see here speaks of God.”

When you walk into your church, what language is being spoken? What message is being conveyed? What does an auditorium with big screens and padded seats, devoid of a cross tell us about God and our Christian faith?

Allow me to put it this way, if your church were a book, would it be a wonderfully crafted literary work or a trashy novel?

These are important questions to ask, especially when our building cornerstone reads “To the Glory of God”, while our architecture speaks nothing of Him. I guess you can’t judge a book by its cover.

(Originally posted at www.jeffkclarke.comwww.jeffkclarke.com)

A German Lutheran reflects on Remembrance Day in Canada

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by Christian Schreiner, Dean of the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, Québec

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them. (Laurence Binyon)

Every year, we meet here at the Cathedral, at Christ Church Valcartier, and at many many other places across the country, to remember them. We read the names of those who have died, those who had to lay down their lives in the wars of the 20th century.

We remember – and we say “Never again”, again and again. They had to die – because we failed. Humanity failed. They had to die because war had become the only solution. And we need to ask: WHY? How did it come to this – that young Canadians had to cross the Atlantic Ocean and die on the battlefields in Belgium, France and Germany. Read more →

Catholics and Lutherans at 500: Ecclesia semper reformanda by James Frederick Brown

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On October 31, 2016, Reformation Day, a two-part event in Lund and Malmö, Sweden, calling together both Roman Catholics and Lutherans, signalled the beginning of a year-long global commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation. Podcasts of both the Common Prayer service at St. Lawrence Cathedral, Lund, and the subsequent gathering, Together in Hope in the Malmö Arena, are posted at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plkK6zNHP_0 and https://www.svenskakyrkan.se/hope2016/live

It is easy to underestimate the significance of this occasion against the backdrop of at least 450 years of schism. The Lutheran Reformation itself redrew the map of Christendom, not only for the medieval world, but for all the generations that have followed. To contemplate reconciliation at this late date is unbelievable for people acquainted with the long history of Christian denominationalism and Protestant-Catholic sectarianism. The Second Vatican Council of 1962-1965, however, set a new course for Catholics and Lutherans, a course whose chief feature was a commitment to ecumenical dialogue. The mandate of the dialogue partners has been to re-examine the points of departure of the two churches, to revisit their shared history in its socio-political context, and to sift through the doctrines and beliefs of Catholics and Lutherans for convergence and agreement. Read more →

Idol Factories – by Paul Bosch

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“The human mind is an idol factory.”  The sentiment is from John Calvin, the great  reformer.  I recalled his words as I composed my thoughts for this blog.
My original title for this piece was to be something like this: “Frontiers in Liturgy.”  Calvin’s pithy quote seemed more attention-grabbing. 

But “Frontiers…” is indeed what I want to get off my chest.  I’m recalling here an early mentor of mine, who argued when I began my ministry that the frontiers in worship these days are not in history:  “The Mozarabic Rite proposes such and such…”

They’re not either in theology, strictly speaking: “This liturgical act or ritual means such and such…”

They’re not, as I was taught now 60 years ago in Seminary, to be found in aesthetics:  “The Finer Things in Life require such and such in worship…”

Each of these worthy pursuits has its place, and each is fruitful for the fullest comprehension of what it is Christians do together when they gather on Sunday mornings.
   
And I’d be willing to argue that the frontiers in worship are not – Heaven forfend! — in Market Research:  “Baby Boomers are looking for such and such in worship…”  Although I suppose, begrudgingly, even Market Research could be a useful tool for a contemporary understanding of worship. Read more →

Lost in the Forest, Part III

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General Synod 2016 & The Liturgy Task Force

Lost in the Forest Part III

Introduction

Now that General Synod 2016 has come to an end, it is important to note two of the resolutions of General Synod that did not make the CBC national news and other news outlets.

Resolution A 142 encourages ‘the work begun within the term limit of the Liturgy Task Force (2010-2016) [continue], guided by the Liturgical Principles and Agenda for Liturgical Revision as adopted by the General Synod 2010, and light of evolving priorities in the General Synod’s ministry’. So, in the months ahead, we may hope for the appointment of a new incarnation of the Task Force. When that information becomes available, I shall do my best to see that the information is shared here on Liturgy Canada’s blog.

Resolution A 143 receives ‘with gratitude the Report of the Liturgy Task Force and [authorizes] . . . for trial use and evaluation for a period of three years’ (i) the three-year set of propers for the liturgical year for use with the Revised Common Lectionary, (ii) morning and evening prayer for ordinary time and seasons and (iii) the liturgical psalter.

This leads me to offer some thoughts about the work that the Task Force was unable to complete within this mandate and that may reasonably be expected to become part of the agenda of the next iteration of the Task Force.

Christian Initiation

Any proposals to revise the rites of Christian initiation in the Anglican Church of Canada are rightfully ones to be subject to scrutiny by the leadership of our community of faith. For this reason, the Christian Initiation Working Group moved deliberately in its work of identifying the issues with the current rites and possible ways to address them.

The Working Group determined that its task was to provide resources that are excellent and can be adapted to the various contexts in which Canadian Anglicans live, work and serve. Over the course of five years the Working Group

  • pooled and collected resources from around the communion and beyond;
  • developed alternative renunciation sentences;
  • explored options to include in the liturgy when one parent or sponsor is not of the faith and developed a resource for this;
  • commissioned the writing of two new “Thanksgiving Over the Water” texts; and
  • revised the ‘Prayers for the Candidates’ that moves the prayers from being solely about the candidates to be more inclusive of the community gathered and towards a missional focus of ministry.

In terms of future work the Working Group identified (i) how the rites of Christian initiation contained in Evangelical Lutheran Worship might be used in an Anglican context, (ii) what alternative resources the Church may require and (iii) the preparation of a new liturgical resource created by the Working Group which will include expanded recommended practices expanding on those found in The Book of Alternative Services.

The Working Group has recommended that the work on Initiation continue. There is additional work and many other resources to develop. It is recommended that further partnerships be forged and explored with those in Canada and through out the communion, especially with those who are shaping and developing work on initiation, the catechumenate and who are providing resources of excellence.

Eucharistic Ordo Project

The task of the Eucharist Working Group evolved into ‘The Ordo Project’. Canadian Anglicans are blessed with an abundance of eucharistic resources: The Book of Common Prayer (1962), The Book of Alternative Services (1985), Supplementary Eucharistic Prayers (1998) and Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006). the Book of Alternative Services, the Supplementary Eucharistic Prayers (1998) and Evangelical Lutheran Worship. These resources combine to provide 23 choices of Great Thanksgiving prayers which we believe gives the church an appropriate richness. Extensive work is being done by other provinces of the Communion as well. This led the Working Group to determine that was is needed is not another printed resource but a digital, on-line presence to assist and advise congregations in their liturgical planning.

An ordo is, of course, simply a manual of procedures, a set of instructions and advice, including both description and history, along with rubrics, which help us to order and organize our liturgies. The ordo project subdivides the liturgy into four main sections: Gathering, Proclamation, Meal, and Sending. Each major sections further sub-divides into its component parts: Procession, Act of Praise, Collect of the Day, etc. For each piece of the action, there is a descriptive passage detailing what it is and what it is for, along with rubrics suggesting how it can best be used. Posture, style, tone of voice, the role of the assembly, and the principal actors are all discussed and explained. This is all designed as an on-line, easily accessed and adapted resource.

Progress Report on Calendrical Reform

The Liturgy Task Force was mandated to undertake a review of and propose revisions to the liturgical calendar in The Book of Alternative Services as well as other calendrical matters. Substantial research was undertaken by the Venerable Dr. Francis Cooper, OGS, in the context of his studies for a Doctor of Ministry degree.

Proposals for the progressed temporal calendar were considered such as creating an Epiphany season, adding an optional feast of Corpus Christi, transferring Ascension to the following Sunday, just to mention a few. The Task Force discussed the process for ‘retiring’ memorials and commemorations as well as how particular dates are chosen in connection with historical events.

Recommendations

In its report to General Synod the Liturgy Task Force has recommended the future work of liturgical revision, begun by this Task Force and faithful to the directions established in Liturgical Principles: Principles for the Revision of our Contemporary Language Authorized Liturgical Texts, should include

  • the continuation of the daily office project to include prayer during the day and night prayer;
  • the preparation of an Anglican chant version of the liturgical psalter;
  • the review and, if necessary, further revision of the trial-use propers;
  • the review and revision of the ordinal;
  • the review and revision of the rites for ministry with the sick; and
  • the review, revision and expansion of rites for the dying, at the time of death and funerals.

Conclusion

We now wait to see if a new Liturgy Task Force will be appointed to continue the work begun five years ago. As the dust settles from the General Synod 2016, I hope that the important work the Liturgy Task Force has completed and the work we envision still needs to be done will not be lost in the haze created by the revision of the Marriage Canon. Worship continues to be the most public act of the Christian community and remains the primary means by which people learn how to follow the path of Christian discipleship in communion with God and with others.

Our on-going ministry requires that we have liturgical rites that are, to use Keith Watkins’ phrase, ‘faithful and fair’ and rites that engage our context in the four dimensions identified by our Lutheran sisters and brothers in the Nairobi Statement on Worship and Culture: transculturally, contextually, counter-culturally and cross-culturally. There is still work to be done and for this I say, ‘Thanks be to God’.

Richard+

(The Rev’d Dr) Richard Geoffrey Leggett

Note: Portions of this blog entry are adapted from the Report of the Liturgy Task Force and its Working Groups.

Lost in the Forest, Part II

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General Synod & The Liturgy Task Force:  Lost in the Forest Part II

Introduction

As I mentioned in my first blog on the work of the Liturgy Task Force, we were able to identify quickly the projects we wanted to address during the five years before us. But, as so often happens, we were not able to complete all our work. We were able to complete three major projects: (i) the creation of a three-year set of propers, (ii) the revision of morning and evening prayer and (iii) a liturgical psalter, based on the psalter of The Book of Alternative Services, but emended for inclusive language.

Collects and Prayers over the Gifts and after Communion

The Rev’d James Brown, Dr Kenneth Hull, the Rev’d Dr Richard Geoffrey Leggett, the Rev’d Dr Boyd Morgan, the Rt Rev’d David Torraville, the Very Rev’d Peter Wall

In 1983 the Doctrine and Worship Committee presented the General Synod with a draft Book of Alternative Services which required further editing and revision. General Synod authorized the Doctrine and Worship Committee to complete its work and to permit the National Executive Council to publish the work upon its completion. When The Book of Alternative Services was published in 1985, it followed the pattern of The Book of Common Prayer (TEC 1979) by providing one collect for each occasion in the three-year lectionary. In addition to the collect, The Book of Alternative Services included a prayer over the gifts and a prayer after communion.

It became quickly apparent that having only one collect was unsatisfactory. If, as the introduction to the Holy Eucharist in The Book of Alternative Services states, the collect of the day ‘provides the transition to the readings for the day’ (p. 174), then what is the community to make of a collect that has no connection at all to what is to be read? For this reason, General Synod 2010 authorized Faith, Worship and Ministry to establish a Task Force, one of whose tasks was the preparation of a three-year cycle of collects that provide a genuine transition to the readings for the day.

The Propers Working Group has fulfilled this task. We have used three approaches to our work: (i) we have created collects; (ii) we have adopted collects from other sources; and (iii) we have adapted collects from other sources. We have chosen language that we believe to be faithful to the Scriptures and food for the theological and spiritual imagination of the gathered community. Some of the collects follow a structure familiar to Anglicans, while others do not. All, however, are expressions of the Christian faith rooted in the Scriptures and the ecumenical creeds.

Instead of preparing a prayer over the gifts and a prayer after communion for each occasion, we have recommended the use of the seasonal prayers from Evangelical Lutheran Worship.

With this work the worshipping communities of the Anglican Church of Canada will have a choice of up to four collects for each occasion: (i) the collect from The Book of Alternative Services, (ii) the collect from Evangelical Lutheran Worship and (iii) two trial use collects. Communities will have a similar choice regarding the prayer over the gifts and the prayer after communion: (i) the prayers from The Book of Alternative Services and (ii) the seasonal prayers from Evangelical Lutheran Worship. These choices will permit presiders to choose prayers which serve the context of their community and to explore new language for the mystery of creation, redemption and sanctification made known to us by God through Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Daily Office

The Rev’d Dr Richard Geoffrey Leggett in collaboration with the Members of the Liturgy Task Force

In the years since the publication of The Book of Alternative Services many Anglicans have found a renewed interest in regular and structured daily prayer as a means of ‘praying without ceasing’. This renewed interest, however, was not served well by how Morning and Evening Prayer were laid out in The Book of Alternative Services. A full and satisfying use of the Offices required worshippers to turn numerous times to different pages and then back again. This editorial design meant that many of the riches of the Offices in The Book of Alternative Services were not well-used or even well-known.

Other factors have also influenced Daily Prayer in these first decades of the twenty-first century. First, although The Book of Alternative Services made some strides in more complementary language for God and more inclusive language for people, many contemporary worshippers desired that more strides be made towards language that is ‘faithful and fair’. In this set of offices a balance has been sought between traditional and more inclusive language for God using principles similar to those used in the preparation of ‘The Liturgical Psalter’.

Second, in 1992 the Society of Saint Francis published Celebrating Common Prayer, a daily prayer book that introduced a new way of structuring the Daily Offices around the liturgical year. This innovative approach, along with a wider selection of canticles and prayers, influenced many Anglicans throughout the world. By 2005 the Church of England published Common Worship: Daily Prayer which provides worshippers with daily prayer for every day of the week in ordinary time and daily prayer for the seasons of the liturgical year. This resource has influenced the work of the Liturgy Task Force in preparing this resource for trial use in the Anglican Church of Canada.

While the structure of Morning and Evening Prayer in The Book of Alternative Services is the foundation of the offices that follow, Common Worship: Daily Prayer has provided both texts and approaches to the offices for each season. Each office is designed so that those who use it for prayer need only move page by page through the office. Seasonal Morning and Evening Prayer have been prepared for Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Passiontide, Easter, Pentecost and All Saints. Morning and Evening Prayer for each day of the week in Ordinary time have also been provided.

The Liturgical Psalter

The Rev’d Dr Richard Geoffrey Leggett in collaboration with the Rev’d James Brown and Dr Kenneth Hull

The purpose of this emendation of the Psalter as printed in The Book of Alternative Services is to prepare a psalter whose language is (i) faithful to the intent of the writers of the psalms as poems expressing the relationship between God and the people of Israel and (ii) fair to current users of the psalms who have found some barriers to the integration of the psalms into their life of prayer and worship.

Since the adoption of the psalter from The Book of Common Prayer (TEC 1979) for use in The Book of Alternative Services, there has been a growing awareness of the need to address several issues.

The first issue is a linguistic one. The English language uses the masculine singular pronoun when referring to God in the third person. In this psalter alternative wordings or sentence structures have been used to eliminate the use of the masculine pronoun when referring to God. Likewise, third-person plural pronouns have been used to replace the singular when referring to human beings in a particular category, e.g., ‘the wicked’, ‘the scornful’, ‘the righteous’, etc. In some cases, however, masculine gender has been retained for human beings referred to in the psalms, e.g., Psalm 72. In such cases the context requires gender specificity. In addressing this linguistic issue the psalms as printed in Evangelical Lutheran Worship and in the New Revised Standard Version of the Scriptures have been consulted for guidance in the emendation.

A second issue is versification. As a consequence of certain historical circumstances, the versification of the Psalms in the Anglican tradition does not always coincide with the versification in the Bible itself. Consequently, the versification of the psalms in ‘The Liturgical Psalter’ has been altered to conform to the versification of the New Revised Standard Version in order to facilitate use with the Revised Common Lectionary citations of psalms, especially when liturgical planners are using on-line and web resources.

A third issue focuses on certain traditional titles for God. While some contemporary psalters have eliminated the use of ‘Lord’ as a title for God, this emendation retains its use. In a world of competing claims of sovereignty, in our own times as well as in biblical times, the use of ‘Lord’ reminds us who is truly sovereign and whose purposes are being worked out in human history.

A fourth issue centres around the psalm prayers provided in The Book of Alternative Services. At the discretion of the liturgical planner any psalm may be followed by the recitation of a doxology or a psalm prayer. Appropriate psalm prayers are found in The Book of Alternative Services and Evangelical Lutheran Worship: Leaders Desk Edition.

The traditional division of the psalter into five books has been maintained here as well as the use of the Latin incipits (‘first line’).

The Liturgy Task Force recognizes that there are many inclusive-language psalters available for use including, but not limited to, the psalms in Evangelical Lutheran Worship, the Psalter for the Christian People, The Saint Helena Psalter and the Canadian publication, Songs for the Holy One. Our intention is to provide an emendation of a familiar translation to foster the prayer of the Church.

Richard+

(The Rev’d Dr) Richard Geoffrey Leggett

Lost in the Forest, Part I

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General Synod 2016 & The Liturgy Task Force
Lost in the Forest Part 1

As General Synod 2016 meets in Toronto, human sexuality has once again claimed the headlines. The revision of Canon XXI is something I dearly desire and, while I was on Faith, Worship and Ministry, I served as a member of a small working group that explored how the Canon could be revised to include the marriage of same-sex couples.

However, the focus on sexuality means that other significant work may get ‘lost in the forest’. One babe which may get lost amidst the trees is the work of liturgical revision begun by the Liturgy Task Force six years ago. Read more →