Common Worship
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Common Worship is a form of liturgy, published by and for use in the Church of England and launched on the first Sunday of Advent in 2000. It represents the most recent stage of development of the Liturgical Movement within the Church and is the successor to the Alternative Service Book (ASB) of 1980. Like the earlier book it is, in theory, an alternative to the standard Book of Common Prayer (BCP) of 1662. In practice the latter has all but disappeared from mainstream English worship, although it is still sometimes used at marriage services and is still the standard form of choral evensong used at many cathedrals and churches.
Common Worship offers a wider choice of forms for each section of the liturgy than any previous liturgy. It is published in electronic as well as paper form, with the intent that congregations can assemble their own orders of service using the forms they prefer for each section of the service, and if desired extending them with prayers and readings. Many churches have produced separate books for each of a number of different types of service (parish Eucharist, family service, different church seasons, etc). Those which produce complete material for each Sunday can also include hymns, made available through the same software package. The book represents a leap forward in the distribution of liturgy and production of worship materials within the Church of England.
Like the ASB it is mostly in modern language (though it retains a version of the Eucharist which is almost identical to that in the BCP). Unlike the ASB it consists not of one book but of three, with more to come. The main book includes the Sunday services of Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer, Baptism (though not Confirmation), and various forms of Holy Communion, including eight Eucharistic Prayers, not all of which adhere to the Hippolytan form. A separate book styled Pastoral Services contains the forms for Wholeness and Healing, Marriage, emergency Baptism, Thanksgiving for the Gift of a Child, and Funerals. The Daily Prayer book did not emerge until 2004.
Common Worship itself contains no readings. The new lectionary which has been authorised at the same time derives from the Roman Catholic Revised Common Lectionary, though it differs from it at certain times of the year. This runs on a three year cycle, A, B, and C, with, respectively, Matthew, Mark, and Luke being given the gospel readings in one of the three years. The attempt to provide themes has been deliberately abandoned in order to give each writer his own voice in a sequence of readings either of the whole book or where books are long, parts of it. There is some provision for themes. The Old Testament reading can be chosen either to run continuously or to be chosen because it relates to the Gospel. No such provision is made for the New Testament reading. Material from St John's gospel is introduced at various points, most especially in year B, which is devoted to St Mark's gospel, which is shorter than the others.
Common Worship is, to a degree, a misnomer. The recognition of the variety desired within the Church of England has been provided for in a number of ways. Each service contains a number of options; this applies even to adherence to the lectionary. But the provision for services of the Word, authorised earlier but now incorporated into Common Worship is so permissive that it more resembles the Directory of Public Worship produced during the Commonwealth than a liturgy. The "common" of Common Worship is in the framework and structure for each service but then allowing for a variety of prayers and resources to be used within those common structures. This allows individual churches to tailor their services to their own setting and culture and the needs of their particular congregations, but it has been criticised as rendering the idea of "common prayer" almost obsolete.
Drafting and approval
The services and resources that comprise Common Worship represent the latest stage of a process of liturgical revision which began in the 1920s. They were originally drafted by the Liturgical Commission. The Commission is made up of a variety of people with different expertise, including lay people, parish clergy and bishops, liturgists and theologians. The material was passed on to the House of Bishops, which amended the material as it saw fit. It was then presented to the General Synod.
Forms of services that were alternative to equivalents in the Book of Common Prayer were debated by Synod and revised by a synodical Revision Committee in the light of the comments made by Synod members and the wider public. The House of Bishops then reconsidered them, put them into their final form and submitted them to the General Synod for Final Approval as Authorized Services. To be authorized, each service had to gain a two-thirds majority in each House of the Synod (Bishops, Clergy and Laity).
Additional material, which had no equivalent in the Book of Common Prayer, was debated by the General Synod and then put in its final form and Commended by the House of Bishops.
In the case of authorized services in Common Worship, the Archbishops Council gave some 800 parishes permission to use draft forms of service on an experimental basis before they were presented to the General Synod. The services were adjusted in the light of feedback from this 'field testing'.
See also
External link
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