Morning and Evening Prayer in Texts for Common Prayer: Tools to Fulfill the Great Commission?

By Robin G. Jordan

In Texts for Common Prayer the ACNA’s liturgical commission adopts the 1979 order of Morning and Evening Prayer for these offices for the Anglican Church in North America. Indeed, Morning and Evening Prayer in Texts for Common Prayer is so closely modeled upon Morning and Evening Prayer in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer that they are almost indistinguishable. The former Episcopalians who comprise the liturgical commission have not been able to make a complete break with the worship patterns of their former denomination.

The 1979 revision of the American Prayer Book changed the order of Morning and Evening Prayer after the Collect of the Day and added a number of so-called enrichments to the two offices.  These changes were consistent with the 1979 revision’s emphasis of the Holy Eucharist as the central act of worship on Sundays. They effectively eliminated the use of Morning and Evening Prayer as regular services of public worship in the Episcopal Church and reduced Morning and Evening Prayer to forms for the use of clergy and pious laity in their private devotions. The services of Morning and Evening Prayer in the 1928 Prayer Book, patterned on the services of Morning and Evening Prayer in the 1662 Prayer Book, were much better suited for use as regular services of public worship and were used for that purpose as late as the early 1970s.

The ACNA’s liturgical commission took A Prayer for the Clergy and People and sacrificed it on the Procrustean bed of the 1979 order of Morning and Evening Prayer. This collect originally came from the Sacramentary of Gelatious (A.D. 492), and is found in the Old English Primers. It was placed at the end of the first English version of the Litany published in 1544, and was inserted in the Prayer Book at the end of the Litany in 1559. It was placed after A Prayer for the Queen’s Majesty in 1662 and in the American Prayer Book after A Prayer for the President of the United States and All in Civil Authority in 1789. It occupied this position in the American Prayer Book until the revision of the 1979.

In the 1979 order of Morning and Evening Prayer seven daily collects and three mission prayers follow the Collect of the Day. Those using the offices may read one or more of the daily collects and one of the mission prayers. The liturgical commission has altered A Prayer for the Clergy and People, added the words, “and ignite in them a zealous love of your Gospel,” and turned it into one of the mission prayers.

The liturgical commission would have done better to have returned to the 1928 order of Morning and Evening Prayer.  This would have provided the Anglican Church in North America with another form of service for use as a regular service of public worship on Sundays. The 1979 form of Morning and Evening Prayer is not suited to this purpose.  The form of Morning and Evening Prayer in the Anglican Church of Canada’s 1985 Book of Alternative Services is much better suited to the use of Morning or Evening Prayer as a regular service of public worship on Sundays. A sermon can be preached after the readings and before the creed,familiar hymns can be substituted for the canticles, and a simple litany form can be used for the prayers. Congregations are not treated to the rapid fire recitation of a long string of poorly-chosen collects that adds nothing to their worship experience. The flexibility of the 1985 Canadian form of Morning and Evening Prayer make it particularly suitable for the use of small congregations and home groups.

To its credit the liturgical commission does make provision for the preaching of sermon after the readings and the substitution of songs of praise for the canticles. Unfortunately the liturgical commission did not include permission to use metrical versions of the Venite, the Jubilate, the Easter Anthems, the Phos Hilaran, and the other canticles in place of the prose versions.

Except for the utterance of the spontaneous intercessions and thanksgivings of the people and recitation of the Litany and the General Thanksgiving, the liturgical commission makes no provision for intercession and thanksgiving at Morning and Evening Prayer. The officiant is not given permission to read a selection of occasional prayers and thanksgiving. Nor may the officiant substitute a less cumbersome form of prayer for the Litany. The liturgy commission makes no provision for the omission of the Lord’s Prayer, the Suffrages, and the Collects if the Litany is used, a provision found in a number of the newer Anglican service books but not the 1979 Prayer Book.

The Litany is not the best choice for use with a congregation that contains a large number of people who have no previous experience of the Christian community at prayer. In the 1979 Prayer Book the Litany is four pages in length. The Litany, in addition to the Lord’s Prayer, the Suffrages, and the Collects, is even a poorer choice. When the Litany is used, these elements are redundant. The Litany also normally ends with the Lord’s Prayer.

The lack of a provision to omit everything after the Creed and to substitute for the Lord’s Prayer, the Suffrages, and Collects a form of prayer more suitable for a modern day service of public worship is one of the reasons that the 1979 form of Morning and Evening Prayer is poorly suited for use as a regular service of public worship on Sundays. In closely following the 1979 form, Morning and Evening Prayer in Texts for Common Prayer suffers from the same defect.

The rubrics permit the reading of one or more lessons. They note that “normally” a canticle is sung or said after each lesson. The choice of language infers that the canticle may be omitted after a lesson—a feature of the shortened forms of Morning and Evening Prayer found in a number of the more recent Anglican service books and designed for use in private devotions.

Since the rubrics do not limit the number of readings to two—one from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament,  the same choice of language can be interpreted to mean that a canticle should follow each lesson—three lessons, three canticles; four lessons, four canticles; and so on. The rubrics, while offering suggestions, leave what canticles are used and where to the officiant.

Morning and Evening Prayer in Texts for Common Prayer gives the strong impression of being designed for use in seminary chapels, at conferences, and in private devotions but not as a regular service of public worship. These situations, I suspect, are the only situations in which the members of the liturgical commission have taken part in Morning and Evening Prayer. Consequently they have no idea of how Morning and Evening Prayer should be designed to make them usable as regular services of public worship. They have limited experience of non-sacramental worship if they have any experience of that type of worship at all.

If the Anglican Church in North America is committed to the fulfilling the great commission, it needs to put more tools in the local church’s worship tool box. The ACNA also needs to put the right tools in that tool box. A single eucharistic rite for use on Sundays and feast days, a shortened form of the same rite for use on weekdays,  a provision for deacons’ Masses, and forms of Morning and Evening Prayer for use in seminary chapels, at conferences, and as private devotions is an inadequate set of tools to say the least.

It suggests that the Anglican Church in North America is not really serious about taking the gospel to unreached and lightly reached people groups in North America, making disciples, and enfolding them into churches. It further suggests that the present members of the ACNA’s liturgical commission may be wrong people to be putting together such an important tool box.

It also prompts a number of questions about the leadership of the ACNA’s College of Bishops. Does the College of Bishops understand what the local church needs in its worship tool box to reach the lost?  Is College of Bishops satisfied to give the nod to whatever the liturgical commission comes up with because two of its members are colleagues? These are reasonable questions to ask.

A number of Anglican provinces and at least one Anglican diocese have produced service books that equip the local church with more tools. They have not only made the services of Morning and Evening Prayer and Holy Communion more flexible but have added new forms of service to the worship toolbox of the local church. The Church of England has produced a Service of the Word, which may be used with a celebration of Holy Communion or separately.  The Church of Ireland has also adopted a similar pattern of worship for use when the services of Morning and Evening Prayer and Holy Communion do not meet the needs of a particular congregation. The Anglican Church of Australia in its two most recent service books, An Australian Prayer Book (1978) and A Prayer Book for Australia (1999), provides a number of non-sacramental options for Sunday services.  So does the Diocese of Sydney in Sunday Services (2000) and Common Prayer: Resources for Gospel-Shaped Gatherings (2012).

While the Anglican Church of Kenya’s most recent service book has only three options for Sunday services—Morning Worship, Evening Worship, and the Service of Holy Communion, the first two options are designed to be used as regular services of public worship on Sundays. They are not forms that are not intended for that use but which may be put to that use under special circumstances. The compilers of the 1979 Prayer Book did not envision the use of Morning and Evening Prayer as regular services of worship on Sundays. Nor do the compilers of Texts for Common Prayer.  However, the compilers of Our Modern Services (2002, 2003) did envision the use of Morning and Evening Worship as Sunday services. Morning and Evening Worship are not only designed for use as regular services of public worship on Sundays but also they are particularly suited to the cultural setting in which they are used. They have permitted the Anglican Church of Kenya to make extensive use of evangelists and lay readers to spread the gospel, plant new churches, and care for new Christians.

If the Anglican Church in North America does not give its local churches more tools and the right tools for fulfilling the great commission, the ACNA will become another Continuing Anglican Church in North America. The ACNA will go the way that the existing Continuing Anglican Churches have gone. They neglected the gospel. They did not make disciples and enfold them into churches. They are withering as their base withers.

North America does not need more Continuing Anglican Churches. North America does need more gospel-centered, mission-shaped churches. The worship tool box that the ACNA’s liturgical commission has put together so far is not the worship tool box of a church that is centered on the gospel and shaped for mission It is the worship tool box of a church that is centered on the sacraments and content to do nothing. It looks suspiciously like the tool box of another Continuing Anglican Church.

Also see
The Story behind Alternative Forms of Service (2009)
Three Contemporary English Services of Holy Communion for North American Anglicans