Common Worship
From Freepedia
Common Worship is a series of services and prayers, frequently referred to as liturgy, published by and for use in the Church of England.
The Church of England has two different but complementary sets of services that are authorized for use: Common Worship is one such set for the Church of England denomination in England and the other is the 1662 Book of Common Prayer (BCP).
Common Worship supplements the Book of Common Prayer with services and prayers in diverse styles. Most of the material is in contemporary language, but some of the services are based on those in the Book of Common Prayer, incorporating adaptations and additions that have become customary over the years.
It has proven very popular since its official launch in 2000 (on the first Sunday of Advent.) The books, booklets and electronic editions provide worked out services and resource material for churches, ministers and individual worshippers to use in formal services and individual prayers. Printed editions can be found in pews of Anglican churches and chapels up and down England and many churches now produce their own booklets using software packages like Visual Liturgy.
Common Worship takes over from its predecessor, the Alternative Service Book (ASB), which was first published in 1980 but ran out of authorization in 2000. Common Worship draws upon the ASB, the BCP and other Anglican prayer books for style and content.
As well as familiar service structures for Holy Communion, Baptism, Marriage, Funeral, Morning and Evening Prayer, the material also includes services and prayers not found in older prayer books, such as A Service of Thanksgiving for the Gift of a Child. (In 1662, it was assumed that all children brought to church would be baptised as infants. Modern practice is more inclusive and provides more flexibility.)
Whereas in the BCP, you could guarantee that everyone everywhere was saying and doing the same thing, Common Worship offers more flexibility. 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.
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 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'.
