The books in the picture to the left (if you are reading this in your email inbox and don’t see a picture, look up and click “Display Images Below”) is sampling of some of the liturgies we are studying this week.  For the curious these books contain the Book of Common Prayer from 1549, 1552, 1662, the proposed Church of England Prayer Book in 1928 (it was defeated in Parliament), and a volume from a new series in England called Common Worship.
The changes in these books have been fascinating and perhaps what is …

Last night (Wednesday, June 30), I spent some time talking about worship from a biblical standpoint.  I used a lot of scripture and ideas and while I can’t recreate what was said last night, I did want to post the scripture references so you can read them in their entirety on their own.  The following is a basic outline:
I.  When a child is born, her natural instinct is to crawl up her mother’s womb to her breast to receive her first taste of sustenance.   Likewise, in most of the …

from Christian Century
The parish liturgy committee decided to adopt the contemporary version of the Lord’s Prayer for use during worship. From now on, at least at one of the services, we’d be “sinners” instead of “trespassers.” The next Sunday a distraught man cornered me. “You’ve taken the Lord’s Prayer away from us!”
I was shocked. What did he mean? We’d been preparing and educating people for this small change for years. How could changing a few words “take away” the Lord’s Prayer?
I thought: maybe the Lord’s Prayer was not part of …

Church:  All Saints’ (Church of England)
Location: Margaret Street, London, UK
Website: http://www.allsaintsmargaretstreet.org.uk/
Also, check out the entry from the Mystery Worshipper.   Makes one wonder what could be said about St Tim’s.

If we’re honest, isn’t that what we long for?  To know there is something bigger, something larger than anything we’ve imagined?  What would it feel like to completely and honestly give yourself over to something that is larger than our imagination?  Come and see.  Worship at St Timothy’s this Sunday.  Come at 7:30 for a contemplative service in the chapel.  Kneel in a space built by the first members of St Timothy’s and pray in a language that is as old as our unique Anglican heritage.  Or come at 9:00 …

Wednesday is the final Rogation Day of 2010.  Rogation Day? you ask.  No, it is not a day of prayers and supplications for the regrowth of hair (that’s Rogaine Day, and it’s not on the church kalendar).  Rogation Days are the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday before Ascension Day – the 40th day after Easter and it falls on a Thursday.  A quick definition from the Episcopal Dictionary of the Church –
Traditionally, these are the three days before Ascension Day on which the litany is sung (or recited) in procession …

“The worship of God in which they joined was, by the violent contrast to all else in their lives, at once a vindication of the other-worldliness of their faith and an implicit condemnation of the filthy environment amid which the social sin of an acquisitive and complacent ruling class had condemned them to live.”
Maurice Reckitt on liturgy in the slums

On the post “Why Chant?” I incorrectly quoted Christin Barnhardt.  she actually said there are fewer vowels in Latin and are pure vowel sounds.  That’s why is just sounds so darn good.

Why chant?
Ask my family and they will roll their eyes with stories of their father and husband chanting even the most mundane of household conversations.  I’ve chanted “What are we having for dinner?” all the way down to “Will you please pass the salt?”  That being said (or chanted), this is not why chant is used at 11am. In antiquity, if you wanted to communicate something sacred, you either sung it or whispered it.  Think about the things you whisper.  Also think about the times when saying something …