Reshaping the 1928 Prayer Book Services for Mission – Part 3

The Holy Table at St. Mark's Anglican Church, Benton, Kentucky

By Robin G. Jordan

Among the four new works in which I was involved to various extents during the opening decade of this century was North Cross United Methodist Church. At the time I became involved in North Cross UMC, I was involved in the early stages of an Anglican Mission in America church plant. I was a member of the core group that the AMiA church planter was putting together to form the nucleus of a new AMiA church. We were not meeting for worship, only for core-group development. The AMiA church planter had encouraged core-group members to attend one of the churches in the area until it was time to launch the new church and to hold its first service of public worship. I chose to attend North Cross because it was a fairly young church plant and I thought that I could gain more practical experience in pioneering a new church from attending the church. I also became involved an Episcopal “dinner church” that had popped up in the area after the arrival of the AMiA church planter. I did so in part out of curiosity and in part at the request of the AMiA church planter. This new work was attracting people who might have been attracted to the new AMiA church. I would be with North Cross for roughly two years.

When I first became involved in North Cross, the church was meeting in rented space at the Madisonville Maritime Museum. As well as having the use of two large conference rooms on the main floor, it had the use of a smaller meeting room on the second room. It used the two larger rooms for worship services and the children’s ministry and the smaller room for a nursery. A welcome center and a table with hot coffee and donuts, sweet rolls, cookies, or muffins were set up at the entrance of one of the larger rooms. The two larger rooms adjoined each other. People had to pass through the first room to enter the second room. In the second room rows of stacking chairs were arranged in four sections, facing a communion table, a lectern, and a projection screen. To one side were a baby grand piano and two rows of chairs for the choir. The choir was formed shortly after I became involved in the church.

The music for the worship services was taken from the United Methodist Hymnal, a collection of standard hymns and gospel songs, and The Faith We Sing, a collection of older worship songs and praise choruses, songs from the World Church, and new compositions. It was what is sometimes described as the “New Traditional.” I was familiar with most of the praise choruses and worship songs from the 1980s and 1990s.

The lyrics of the hymns and songs were projected onto the screen, using a multimedia projector.

While the choir occasionally performed special music such as singing a call to worship at the beginning of the worship service, its primary role was to lead the congregational singing. The pastor had a good singing voice, sung with the choir, encouraged the participation of the congregation in the singing of the hymns and songs, and took a lead role in the selection of music for the worship services. The pianist was the pastor’s father who lived more than an hour’s drive from Madisonville.

While the area church that boasted the largest attendance used what is sometimes described as “Contemporary” music, the use of “New Traditional” music was still a viable choice for the area. North Cross did not attract a large crowd like the Church of the King but its worship services were well-attended.

As well as attracting young families and older couples, North Cross also attracted single young adults and teenagers. While largely attracting people with a Methodist background, the church also attracted people with other Protestant backgrounds. Its weekly celebration of Holy Communion attracted mixed couples in which one spouse was Protestant and the other Roman Catholic. From 2003 on North Cross began to see a trickle of disaffected Episcopalians looking for a new church home. The people who were attending North Cross were also inviting unchurched friends, neighbors, relatives, and colleagues to the church.

One of the reasons that people were attracted to North Cross was the growing reputation of the pastor as a preacher. He received high marks for his energetic delivery, good use of illustrations, and clear Bible teaching from the congregation. When people are excited about the preaching, music, children’s ministry, ministry opportunities, and relaxed atmosphere of a church, they tell people about the church. They also invite people to church.

What was most interesting about North Cross from the perspective of this article series was its use of traditional language in hymns and songs, responsive readings, the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles’ Creed, and the Doxology. All of these elements were regularly used in North Cross’ worship services. On occasion the General Confession and Absolution and the Prayer of Consecration from John Wesley’s Sunday Service of Methodists in North America, a order for the administration of Holy Communion that is a shortened version of the 1662 Communion Service, was used. (Since I moved to western Kentucky, I have also learned that elements of Wesley’s Sunday Service are sometimes used in United Methodist churches in the region.)

The use of traditional language in these worship elements was a viable choice for the area. Most of the area’s population spoke English as their first language. While Tudor English contains a number of archaic words and grammatical structures, it is not as far removed from modern-day English as Middle English or Old English.

The area was primarily suburban, middle class. A large segment of the area’s population had a high school education or higher. This population segment had been exposed to Tudor English when they studied English literature from the Elizabethan period, chiefly the plays and sonnets of William Shakespeare.

A phenomenon that is quite evident in high schools and universities today was not as evident ten years ago. One of my fellow students at Murray State University pointed this phenomenon to my attention. Very few students in his English literature classes show any interest in learning Tudor English. His observation corresponded with my own observation that the English vocabulary of students not only entering the university but graduating from it is impoverished. They are not familiar with many of the words which high school students of my generation were expected to learn and use. The factors behind their impoverished vocabulary are complicated. While we may decry this development, it is one of the realities of the twenty-first century North American mission field.

A large segment of the area’s population was Protestant in their religious affiliation. There was a reasonable likelihood that this population segment had been exposed to Tudor English through the use of the King James Version of the Bible, traditional language hymns, and traditional language prayers at a church that the households forming this population segment had attended in the past. This likelihood was far greater in 2002-2003 than it is now.

What was particularly noteworthy about the use of traditional language texts at North Cross was that it was much more sparing than in Continuing Anglican churches using the 1928 Prayer Book and Episcopal churches using Rite I. Its use of these texts was confined to the worship elements that I previously mentioned. This use was consistent with the Methodist tradition of plain and unadorned worship and embodied the key liturgical principle of simplicity: less is more. The spareness that characterizes the Methodist worship tradition is a part of its Anglican heritage. John Wesley himself applied the principle of simplicity when he abbreviated the Anglican Communion Service for the use of Methodists in North America. Wesley was an Anglican priest and was familiar with the principle of simplicity from Archbishop Cranmer’s Preface to the 1549 Prayer Book. The principle of simplicity was used in the compilation of the 1549 and 1552 Prayer Books and has influenced subsequent revisers of the Prayer Book. In abbreviating the Anglican Communion Service, Wesley took the principle of simplicity a step further than Cranmer.

Among the conclusions that I drew from the time that I was at North Cross was that a church might use traditional language texts on the North American mission field with a measure of success provided that:

1. The population of the area in which the church is located, or a reasonably large segment of it, has some past exposure to Tudor English (i.e., studied Elizabethan literature, read the King James Bible, sung traditional hymn, etc.) Churches using traditional language texts cannot, however, assume a level of familiarity with Tudor English in the general population today that they might have assumed in the past. While The Book of Common Prayer and the King James Bible may have influenced the development of modern English, their influence is waning. The works of William Shakespeare and other Elizabethan authors and playwrights do not occupy the place that they once did. The traditional hymn has also fallen on hard times.

2. A church makes a more sparing use of traditional language texts than what has become the practice of Continuing Anglican churches using the 1928 Prayer Book and Episcopal churches using Rite I. The 1928 revision of the American Prayer Book anticipates the need for greater flexibility on the mission field and its general rubrics permit the simplification of a number of its rites and services (e.g., the Daily Offices, Private Baptism, Communion of the Sick, etc.) and the more sparing use of the texts printed in these rites and services.

The simplification of a rite or service and the sparing use of traditional language texts help to make a worship service more accessible to guests who are unaccustomed to set forms of prayer as well as to those who are unfamiliar with Tudor English.

The sparing use of traditional-language texts is also consistent with good pedagogical practice. In teaching a new language to students, an instructor introduces the new language a few words and phrases at a time. The instructor does not overwhelm the students with more than they can assimilate and memorize.

In my next article I will look at how the liturgical principles of simplicity and suitability may be used in reshaping the 1928 Prayer Book services for mission. I will also examine how the 1928 Communion of the Sick was employed as the liturgy for an Episcopal “dinner church.”

Previous Articles in This Series:
Upcoming Article Series on Reshaping the 1928 Prayer Book Services for Mission
Reshaping the 1928 Prayer Book Services for Mission – Part 1
Reshaping the 1928 Prayer Book Services for Mission – Part 2

Image: Bella Raj