Come Provincial Assembly 2019, the Liturgy Task Force plans to present to the Anglican Church in North America its completed, published, and printed Book of Common Prayer 2019.
To get there, the Task Force is seeking your help and participation. You, the member of the Anglican Church in North America, are invited to review the last of the working liturgy texts and submit your feedback to the Task Force for final revisions.
The Liturgy Task Force (LTF) was called and commissioned by the College of Bishops in 2009, at the very beginning of the Anglican Church in North America, to develop a renewed Prayer Book. Over the course of the last approximately 9 years, the LTF has made great strides to accomplish its task.
In 2013, the College of Bishops released rites for Morning and Evening Prayer and the Holy Eucharist. Abundant feedback was received. In 2017, the LTF proposed to the College of Bishops finalized Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Eucharistic liturgies, as well as the Collects for the Christian Year. In 2018, the LTF will finalize the rest of the liturgical texts and bring to the College of Bishops’ meeting in January 2019 the final copy to be adopted and approved for printing.
The LTF consists of 12 sitting members, but has had over 60 people involved in the development of the renewed liturgies through subcommittees and translators.
From the beginning, the LTF has been carefully guided by four principles: Continuity, Memorability, Poetry/Musicality, and Clarity. Often, these principles play against each other which can be a challenge, but an effective prayer book, according to Archbishop Emeritus Robert Duncan, Chair of the LTF, should do its best to balance all four principles.
As it followed these principles and developed the liturgical texts, the LTF sought feedback from members of the Province, worked with the Bishops’ Review Panel, and finally presented each liturgy to the College of Bishops as a whole.
“This has been the most participatory process of any prayer book in history,” said Archbishop Duncan, noting the role the Internet plays in this reality.
The LTF receives feedback in collated form, considers it, evaluates it, and decides whether or not to integrate the suggestions made.
“The product of this process is immensely better than could have been done by any other means,” he believes.
Now, as the process nears its long-expected end, the LTF is calling for another flood of feedback:
“The LTF is urgently calling for feedback on all the working texts not yet finalized, that is everything except Morning and Evening Prayer, the Eucharists, and the Collects of the Christian Year. There are three significant deadlines, and the earlier the feedback is received the better. The first deadline is April 6, the Friday in the first week of Easter,” Archbishop Duncan explained.
The LTF will meet during the second week of the Easter season to review this feedback. It will receive feedback thereafter until August 15, 2018 when it will prepare the service final drafts to be presented to the College of Bishops in September. The final date for the LTF to receive feedback from you, the province, will be November 1, 2018. During November and December, the final revisions will be made in order to be presented to the College of Bishops’ meeting in January for adoption.
Once adopted, the Book of Common Prayer 2019 will go to print just in time for the tenth anniversary Assembly (June 2019) of the Anglican Church in North America!
You are an integral part of this process and the development of the prayer book, and the LTF invites you to participate. One participant wrote with gratitude to the Task Force, “I cannot thank you enough for the improvements made in the services of Morning and Evening Prayer as presented in your January 2018 revision. It is apparent the committee duly noted the responses (including mine) you received to the previous revisions.”
All working texts, deadlines, and liturgy resources can be found here. To share your voice with the LTF, email liturgytaskforce@anglicanchurch.net.
To learn more about the Liturgy Task Force’s work on the Renewed Coverdale Psalter, click here.
