For Your Consideration

Here is the latest report of the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music The Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music is the organ of General Convention usually charged to evaluate and recommend changes in the liturgy of The Episcopal Church. In other words, any proposed new Book of Common Prayer or Enriching Our Worship etc. goes through them. Those with a good memory for GC2003 also will recall that proposals for rites for the blessing of same-sex unions. Students of liturgy will be interested in the various rites associated with church planting. On p. 214, there is a mention of an International Anglican Liturgical Consultation. Has this been lost in the unpleasantness? But the key page to my mind is p. 211, which summarizes the result of a Congregational Survey.

Here are some tidbits:

1. Episcopalians are now a more Eucharistic people than ever before. When I was little, even our fairly High Church Rector put up with Morning Prayer as the principal Sunday service, once a month. St. John Chrysostom in Chicago celebrates the Eucharist on Sunday fortnightly (I'm not quite sure what the patron would think.) Now, the Holy Eucharist tends to be the principal act of Divine Service on Sunday.

2. There is a strong bimodal distribution in the size frequency of Episcopal congregations. In other words, there are a large number of small parishes in the church and a moderate number of much larger ones, but there aren't that many in the middle. Thus, the typical Episcopal church is small (e.g., St. George's in Bolton in the Diocese of Connecticut), but the typical Episcopalian worships in a large congregation (e.g., St. Mary the Virgin in the Diocese of California.)

3. There are 2-3 services per Sunday.

4. The later in the day, the less traditional the liturgy.

5. Music is very important for the principal Sunday morning services.

6. There is some suggestion that praise and worship bands may appear at Episcopal churches on Saturday and Sunday nights. (But I may be reading too much into things...)

7. The Hymnal is big but so is LEVAS (Lift Every Voice and Sing [good Gospel hymns]) and WLP (Worship, Love, and Praise [no idea]).

8. Service music still is sung by the congregation.

9. Worshippers use prayer books, hymnals, and a leaflet. (So Episcopal juggling is alive and well).

10. People typically stand for the Introit, kneel for most of the Eucharist, and stand for the Dismissal.

11. BCP Lectionary still dominates RCL. [Yes, that RCL really snuck up on me. It's not a bad idea... as long as you read the lessons...]

12. Most Congregations use BCP Prayers of the People. (At my second parish, the intercessions usually were free-floating riffs of one sort or another. The first time I was an intercessor, I weaved the readings of the day (especially the Psalm) into Form VI [I think]. People, especially the more senior intercessors, liked that. I prefer straight Form VI myself (or the Prayer for the Whole State of Christ's Church, Militant and Triumphant (that's the original name, right?) We tended to be more Prayer Book-oriented generally in college. If you have to put on much of the service yourself, you don't waste brainpower on florid prose.

13. "Few Episcopal churches involve volunteers in their liturgy planning team." Well, in some places... Liturgists' meetings were my antidrug!

14. Lay volunteers may not do the planning, but they do the execution. Where else but the church and Cub Scouts do you let 8 year-olds use fire? And who can forget the Altar Guild?

15. Less than 25% of congregational membership attend services on Holy Days that fall on weekdays. (This was easier in college than before, though I often joined the Lutherans on Ash Wednesday.)

The comments, we note, are all over the place.

It is asked how one reaches Generation X, Y, or Z. It is very simple: You reach Generation Y by not marketing to us or anyone else. My Roman Catholic friends tend toward the Tridentine Mass but wish they had been instructed to understand it better. I know a few converts to Eastern Orthodoxy. I know evangelicals attracted to a mix of traditional and praise and worship music anchored by solid Bible preaching. I know a girl who basically is attracted to the types of services her grandmother dragged her to when she was little but also appreciates an active community of people her own age. The threads that draw "seekers" my age together is that many of us (Deo gratia not me) are children of divorce. And if we are not children of divorce, we generally have weaker relationships to our extended family and local community than past generations. We are attracted to people and ideas that are anchored in something and long to be as anchored as they are. Thus, we may be sorely disappointed by certain present threads in progressive Christianity. There are a variety of possible anchors, but I think the future of Anglican liturgy and Anglicanism in general lies in being anchored to what has been communicated to us by our spiritual progenitors, not in all things and not at all times but generally.

Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that thy prayers be set forth in the sight of the Lord Our God as the incense and the lifting up of thy hands be thy evening sacrifice.