Evangelical worship at ACNA Synod

Over the weekend, I spoke to several people who attended the ACNA’s Provincial Synod. (It would be a national synod but the ACNA includes both the US and Canada). From a musical standpoint, the general opinion was that first service was the most blended, the last was almost as blended, and the middle two services were all praise band all the time.

The service took place at Christ Church Cathedral Plano (née Christ Church Plano), the largest ACNA parish, which provided the sanctuary, instruments and musicians.

Liturgy

A major focus of the service (and conference) was celebrating the ACNA’s new 2019 Book of Common Prayer, intended to replace the 1979 Book of Common Prayer that ACNA clergy used originally in The Episcopal Church and in the first years of the ACNA. The first printing of the prayer book was provided to all who registered for the conference.

According to the 24-page worship booklet (which I scanned), the service began with the liturgy task force (led by retired Abp. Bob Duncan) presenting the new prayer book.

The service then continued with the “Renewed Ancient Text,” the ACNA’s modified version of the 1979 Rite II service. This is the most commonly used Eucharist in the ACNA, which should not be a surprise given that most clergy (and parishes) were using it when they left the ACNA.

Music

From the worship booklet, I wrote down the set list of all the music:

• Call to Worship [i.e. prelude]: “Jesus Shall Reign” on piano, setting by Ted Cornell
• Processional: “Come, Christians, Join to Sing,” commissioned for the occasion by CCP: words by CH Bateman (1813-1889), setting by John Wasson [b. 1956]
• Songs of Praise: 
• “Living Hope,” words and music by Phil Wickham and Brian Johnson, © 2017
• “Who You Say I Am,” © 2017 Hillsong Music
• Offertory Anthem: “The Church’s One Foundation,” words by S.J. Stone, tune by S.S. Wesley, setting by Dan Forrest [b. 1978], with verses 1,4 sung by the choir & congregation
• Sanctus [no Benedictus]: © 2005 by Christ Church Plano
• Communion Music:
• Agnus Dei (Requiem): words public domain, music by Mark Hayes [b. 1953]
• “Just as I Am,” [opening verse by Charlotte Elliott, 1789-1871], ©2009, words and music by William Bradbury, Charlotte Elliott, Travis Cottrell, Sue C. Smith and David Moffitt
• “Take My Life and Let it Be” with chorus/bridge by Chris Tomlin and Louie Giglio [c. 2003]
• Closing Hymn: “Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee,” words by Henry van Dyke (1852-1933), music Ode to Joy by Beethoven, harmonized by Johnnie Carl (1947-2004)
• Postlude: “Toccata” from Symphonie No. 5 in F minor, Op. 42 by Charles-Marie Widor

So overall the music combined modern adaptations of traditional hymns with 21st century praise music, concluding with a single organ postlude.

Final ACNA Book of Common Prayer online

I've been meaning to report that the final Book of Common Prayer 2019 — and a brand new website and URL (bcp2019.anglicanchurch.net) — are now online. Unlike the earlier task force website (“Texts for Common Prayer”) and resources of the past seven years, this is a polished, professional website — actually much more attractive than the main ACNA website. This new push is in anticipation of next month’s national Assembly, where attendees will head home with the new prayer book.

The website includes an 812 page downloadable (unlocked) PDF version of the full prayer book. Its navigation tabs include

• BCP Text: to download the full PDF, or a PDF or Word copy of one of the 12 major sections of the prayer book.
• Purchase: direct purchase of either the $17 pew book or the $30 imitation leather “deluxe” edition.
• History: a reprint of the preface signed by the first two ACNA archbishops, Bob Duncan and Foley Beach.
• Resources: bulletin inserts for Years A,B,C and the Holy Days which remain constant across all three years; also some residual explanatory materials from the task force days.

Both the inserts and the prayer book itself make it clear that for nearly all purposes, the preferred ACNA readings are now the BCP2019 (“New Coverdale”) for psalms and the ESV for everything else.

Share and Share Alike

The ACNA has aggressively moved into the 21st century with the copyright policy for both its liturgy and its new psalter:

With the exception of the New Coverdale Psalter, the content of the Book of Common Prayer (2019) is not under copyright, and all not-for-profit reproduction of the content by churches and non-profit organizations is permitted. The New Coverdale Psalter is copyright © 2019 by the Anglican Church in North America, but this is not intended to discourage the use and duplication of the text by churches for purposes of worship. 

The right to print the Book of Common Prayer (2019) has been granted exclusively to Anglican Liturgy Press, an imprint of Anglican House Media Ministry, Inc. Any for-profit publication requests must be addressed to Anglican House Media Ministry www.anglicanhousemedia.org

As someone who’s taught IP law for almost 20 years, this dual business model — free online, exclusive rights for dead tree versions — is the only practical approach for the 21st century. While hymnals and (many) hymns are tightly restricted by 3rd party copyrights, liturgy material needs to be shared (not monetized): this is one genie that’s not going back into the bottle.

This approach is in marked contrast to the policies that restrict online sharing  policies of the Church of England and United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and even to the reluctant openness of The Episcopal Church when tech-savvy members sought to put the 1979 prayer book online decades ago. It appears that the Anglican Church of Canada also “gets” it.

Companion Online Resource: Lergeme.com

In contrast to the 1662, 1928 or 1979 prayer books — or the Revised Common Lectionary — there are limited online resources for the BCP2019 beyond the official ACNA website.

What is available is Lergeme.com, which provides the Morning and Evening Prayer updated daily, as well as the fixed offices (such as midday and compline). In a separate, extremely useful feature — modeled on a similar feature at CommonPrayer.org — the Lergeme site provides a calendar that allows a reader to bring up the variable Daily Office and Eucharist readings for any given day.

The site does not use the the BCP2019 psalter. While it allows for alternate Bible translations, beyond the default ESV there are only a handful of modern translations (Good News, The Message, NASB). I can’t get the “About” feature to work on any of my three browsers, so right now I also can’t figure out who to credit with its creation.

As an initial website, it’s a very good starting point. The most useful addition would be a podcast or website of recorded services, for those who regularly practice the Daily Office.

About the Book of Common Prayer 2019

The website and the first five pages of the printed (or PDF) prayer book contain a 2,278 word preface about the context of the new liturgy. After tracing the history of Anglican liturgy from the 2nd to the 17th centuries, the final 370 words of the BCP2019 preface discusses the past 40 years:

The liturgical movement of the 20th century and ecumenical rapproachment in the second half of that century had an immense impact on the Prayer Book tradition. The Book of Common Prayer 1979 in the United States and various Prayer Books that appeared in Anglican Provinces from South America to Kenya to South East Asia to New Zealand were often more revolutionary than evolutionary in character. Eucharistic prayers in particular were influenced by the re-discovery of patristic texts unknown at the Reformation, and often bore little resemblance to what had for centuries been the Anglican norm. Baptismal theology, especially in North America, was affected by radical revisions to the received Christian understanding, and came perilously close to proclaiming a gospel of individual affirmation rather than of personal transformation and sanctification.

At the beginning of the 21st century, global reassessment of the Book of Common Prayer of 1662 as “the standard for doctrine, discipline and worship” shapes the present volume, now presented on the bedrock of its predecessors. Among the timeless treasures offered in this Prayer Book is the Coverdale Psalter of 1535 (employed with every Prayer Book from the mid-16th to the mid-20th centuries), renewed for contemporary use through efforts that included the labors of 20th century Anglicans T.S. Eliot and C.S. Lewis, and brought to final form here. The Book of Common Prayer (2019) is indisputably true to Cranmer’s originating vision of a form of prayers and praises that is thoroughly Biblical, catholic in the manner of the early centuries, highly participatory in delivery, peculiarly Anglican and English in its roots, culturally adaptive and missional in a most remarkable way, utterly accessible to the people and whose repetitions intended to form the faithful catechetically and to give them doxological voice.

The Book of Common Prayer 2019 is the product of the new era of reform and restoration that has created the Anglican Church in North America. The Jerusalem Declaration of 2008 located itself within the historic confines of what is authentically the Christian Faith and the Anglican patrimony, and sought to restore their fullness and beauty. The Book of Common Prayer 2019 is offered to the same end.

Is the Psalter the most lasting impact of Book of Common Prayer 2019?

As expected, earlier this month the ACNA College of Bishops approved the final version of its 2019 liturgy. The printed copies of what used to be called “Texts for Common Prayer” will be distributed in June at the ACNA’s biennial synod, this year at Christ Church Plano.

Its new name will be Book of Common Prayer 2019, marking 30 years since ECUSA’s Book of Common Prayer 1979 that so influenced the language and form of the ACNA’s efforts.

The New Prayer Book

As noted earlier, the new liturgy

• Keeps almost all the language of the 1979 Rite II liturgies for Holy Communion, Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer services, while dropping Rite I.
• For Sunday, uses a lightly modified version of the three-year lectionary instituted after Vatican II and used in the 1979 prayer book, rather than the historic 1-year lectionary of 1549-1928
• For Daily Office, reinstitutes a 1-year lectionary that more closely follows that of 1549-1892 than the American 1928
• Is most dramatically changed from 1979 in its ordinal

The committee had more ambitious goals, but kept the Rite II language at the request of many ACNA pastors who had worshipped (and led worship) with Rite II before and since leaving TEC. 

It also shared many of the assumptions of the 1979, including wide latitude for selecting canticles in Daily Office, and two Holy Communion liturgies. However, unlike the Daily Office variants, each HC has only one form of prayers of the people — rather than multiple POP variants in 1979 BCP or the 2000 Common Worship from the Church of England. It’s not clear whether the (prolific liturgist) late Peter Toon would call this a Book of Common Prayer or term it an “Alternative Service Book”. The English do not call their updated liturgy a BCP, but it’s about practical legislative reasons (rather than theological ones) after to the fiasco of its failed 1928 BCP revision. 

I personally lament the decision of the 2019 liturgy to follow the 1979 in two aspects of Morning and Evening Prayer: omitting “miserable offenders” from the General Confession, and dropping the 1662 “Conditions of Men” prayer that structures petitions for those in need using a theologically humble approach. Both seemed important aspects of the penitence of the 1928 and the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.

The Psalter

While the ACNA liturgy might influence other GAFCON provinces, it’s not clear how much influence it will have on other Anglicans left (i.e. TEC) and right (i.e. Continuing Anglicans) in the U.S., let alone other denominations.

However, of broader relevance is the updated Coverdale Psalter. It didn’t get a lot of visibility (or meaningful feedback) because it wasn’t complete until the very end. However, from my limited use, it seems to largely succeed on its goals of retaining the poetry and cadence of the Coverdale while (mostly gently) sanding off the rough edges of archaic vocabulary. When Nashotah House eventually makes its chanted version, presumably it can leverage the pointing from the 1549-1928 Coverdale sung psalters.

I have the full 258 page PDF on my laptop and iPad and try to use it for Daily Office at least a couple of times a week. I am curious to see how much use it gets outside the ACNA.

Official Announcement

Here is the complete text of the official announcement

The Book of Common Prayer 2019
After six years of the use of draft liturgies, submission of extensive comments from across the Church, and significant revisions and refinements, we have approved the Book of Common Prayer (2019)! The last wave of liturgies in their final form was approved this week for our new Prayer Book, which will be available at Provincial Assembly this June in Plano, Texas. One of the documents approved was the Preface, which includes this helpful introduction to worship in the prayer book tradition: 

At the beginning of the 21st century, global reassessment of the Book of Common Prayer of 1662 as “the standard for doctrine, discipline and worship” shapes the present volume, now presented on the bedrock of its predecessors. Among the timeless treasures offered in this Prayer Book is the Coverdale Psalter of 1535 (employed with every Prayer Book from the mid-16th to the mid-20th centuries), renewed for contemporary use through efforts that included the labors of 20th century Anglicans T.S. Eliot and C.S. Lewis, and brought to final form here. The Book of Common Prayer (2019) is indisputably true to Cranmer’s originating vision of a form of prayers and praises that is thoroughly Biblical, catholic in the manner of the early centuries, highly participatory in delivery, peculiarly Anglican and English in its roots, culturally adaptive and missional in a most remarkable way, utterly accessible to the people, and whose repetitions are intended to form the faithful catechetically and to give them doxological voice. 

Rites that were finalized at this meeting include: 

  * The Ordinal
  * Consecration and Dedication of a Place of Worship
  * Institution of a Rector
  * Occasional Prayers
  * The Psalter
  * Calendar of the Christian Year
  * Sunday, Holy Day, and Commemoration Lectionary
  * Propers for Various Occasions
  * Calendar of Holy Days and Commemorations
  * Daily Office Lectionary

The BCP texts as now finally approved will be put online at AnglicanChurch.net by mid-February under a new Book of Common Prayer tab.

At the conclusion of the liturgical approval process, we stood in unison to praise God and to thank Archbishop Duncan and the Liturgy Task Force for their sacrificial work on this historic resource.