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September 2000, Page 9.
Index of articles.
Worship:
index,
Common Worship,
Our Father.
In this issue:
(September 2000)
Vicar's Letter,
Ephesus,
Gift Aid,
Question,
Common Worship.
"Common Worship" Services
The red service booklets which we use for Holy Communion have been around for a long time now. Some of us will remember how big a change they seemed from the Prayer Book, but we seem to have got used to them. What will the next big change be like?
The structure of the communion service is nearly the same as the red booklets. That’s to say, nearly all the parts come in the same order. The only real change is for the optional prayer “We do not presume...”, which moves from its present place (after the intercessions before the Peace) to a later point (just before we receive the bread and wine). So the new service will feel very similar to the present one.
“Common Worship” also gives a structure for non-communion services, which can be used for All-age services, Parades, and Morning and Evening Prayer. So our present All-age and evening services can also remain mostly in the same order as at present. One advantage of the new package will be that it will be possible to have a single service booklet which can be used for all our services. This will give sufficient flexibility for services of different styles, but it will mean everyone can become familiar with one booklet so that no-one feels strange when we have worship all together.
The words of the thanksgiving prayer at Communion have been changed quite a lot. Instead of the present four options there are seven(!), and some of these have seasonal variations as well. But the basic layout of the prayer stays the same: the priest first thanks God for Jesus, then remembers the way that Jesus instituted the Last Supper, and then asks God to send his Holy Spirit as we eat and drink. The responses for the congregation at the beginning of the prayer (“The Lord is here: His Spirit is with us”), and in the middle (“Holy, Holy, Holy Lord...” and “Christ has died, Christ is risen...”) all remain the same. So although the words might be different, the service will seem quite similar. The liturgical committee recommends that we don’t print all the words in our booklets - instead, we should just print the responses for the congregation. Hopefully, the variations in words will help us to recover some of the freshness of what we are doing.
Finally, there are some annoying little changes to a lot of the words in various prayers. Some of these are to make us think of new aspects of what we’re saying - but some of them seem to be nit-picking in the extreme. They’ve even altered the phrase in the creed about Jesus’ conception: this is supposed to be closer to the Latin original, even though it obscures what Christians believe. I suppose there’s no gain without some loss!
John Hartley
Page 10 of The Link also carried an article about the new Common Worship Communion service. It was reproduced with permission from Praxis News Issue 11, and you can read a copy on the Praxis web site at www.praxisworship.org.uk by following the links to the Parish Magazine article no. 5.