Word

Episcopalians are known as the "People of the Book." What happens when we crack open the Prayer Book and the Bible to discover new words, hidden gems, fresh readings of the traditional texts? What if we listen more attentively to ecumenical voices that complement and push our own? This could change everything.

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What's New

The newly expanded Episcopal Life Online features this page with reflections for preachers, including ones for the Revised Common Lectionary as well as the lectionary of the Book of Common Prayer.

Blessing New Voices is an excellent book of prayers authored by young people, many of which are outstanding and suitable for use in worship with all ages.

The Rev. Dr. Maggi Dawn offers a deeply moving prayer to "Disturb us, Lord ..."

Katherine Hawker of the United Church of Christ published liturgyoutside.net, a site with original litanies, prayers, poems, and some sermon resources organized by topic and pastoral occasion as well as liturgical season.

Anglican liturgist Bosco Peters of New Zealand offers an variety of resources on his Liturgy website.

Mustard Seed Associates offer justice-oriented prayers for Pentecost, including questions for discussion and a litany based on Isaiah 58.

The Anglican website "Full Homely Divinity" has a collection of prayers drawn from a variety of traditional sources as well as a number of helpful essays on the church year.

The Roman Catholic site "Ancient-Future.net" seeks to render ancient texts and traditions of worship in terms relevant to "next generations" and postmodern cultural contexts.

"LiturgiesOnline" was the product of a D.Min. thesis from Moira Laidlaw of the Uniting Church of Australia, and it is particularly valuable for its very practical lists of materials and preparations needed to accompany its liturgical suggestions.

The General Board of Discipleship of the United Methodist Church offers this extensive collection of resources for planning worship, much of which could be easily translated for Anglican contexts.

Fresh Texts

The Rev. Jennifer Phillips offers prayers for Ordinary Time, Hiroshima Day, and the Feast of the Transfiguration.

Resource Publications, Inc. helps leaders in liturgy-based communities successfully carry out their ministries. Check out their Ministry & Liturgy magazine as well as their other publications here and here.

The Practice of Jesus is a helpful web resource providing Commentaries on the readings and liturgical suggestions for the Sundays and holy days of the year of Luke (Year C).

The Earth Ministry website has a collection of worship aids with an emphasis on environmental awareness and caring for all creation.

Sarah Dylan Breuer of SarahLaughed.net has written this loose paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer, designed for use in services including many unchurched people but suitable for use in a variety of settings.

Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation has collected here a series of prayers, litanies, and liturgies in support of the Millennium Development Goals.

The Seekers Church is an intentional, inclusive Christian community in Washington, DC. Their community life and liturgies are patterned after the Church of the Savior, also based in Washington. The Seekers Church website features a rich sampling of their creative liturgical work, all of it available for downloading, usage, and adaptation.

Douglas Briggs of the Episcopal Church of the Advent in Crestwood, Missouri, contributes a Eucharistic prayer that allows for more active participation by the people and a unique statement of faith upon reception of the Eucharist.

Jabez Van Cleef shares these updates of his poetic paraphrased versions of the four gospels: the Song of Matthew; the Song of Mark; the Song of Luke; and the Song of John. These pieces work especially well for musical settings or anytime you'd like a lyric rendering of the gospel. MP3 recordings of all four verse gospels are also available for free playback or downloading from iSound.

The Diocese of Massachusetts' Liturgy and Music Committee has compiled this annotated bibliography of liturgy-planning resources, including a broad range of suggested materials for inclusive language, liturgy planning, liturgical leadership training, worship in multiethnic communities and with young people, and much more.

The website for the Church of England's newest prayer book, Common Worship, features a full, contemporary Eucharistic Rite, with all the text options built-in as links from a single document. You will also find a host of supplementary texts, including penitential material, gospel acclamations, intercessions, collects, post-communion prayers, and blessings.

The Reformed Church in America has created some beautiful litanies covering such themes as racial justice, peace, supplication, and Christmas.

Ronald Clingenpeel composed this Eucharistic Prayer for use at Christ Church Cathedral in St. Louis, where he serves as the dean.

Ormonde Plater, the archdeacon of the Diocese of Louisiana, has created a full set of prayers of the people for Sundays and feast days throughout the church year.

The feminist community at St. Clare's Episcopal Mission in Brevard, North Carolina, has contributed several resources, many of them penned by theologian Carter Heyward, who serves as the community's priest and liturgical coordinator: Order of Service; Eucharistic Rite 1; Eucharistic Rite 2; Eucharistic Rite 5; and an adaptation of the BCP Rite 2 Holy Eucharist.

An inclusive translation of The Lord's Prayer and two Eucharistic Prayers (composed for Maundy Thursday and the Feast of the Ascension but also more widely applicable) come via Richard McCall, associate professor of liturgical studies at Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Looking for liturgical resources related to peace? Several denominations have joined forces to create this set of worship resources for peace. The Episcopal Peace Fellowship (EPF) has created a Peace Packet, originally written for use in Pentecost but containing resources applicable in other liturgical seasons, and with suggestions on how your congregation can work for peace in Israel/Palestine. It includes these Worship Suggestions for Peace. EPF also offers this Prayer for Leadership by Joan Chittister (written for Election Day in November, but suitable throughout the year) and a liturgy for Peace Sunday.

R.C. Laird, a liturgist, musician, and a member of the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music, shares this Litany to Celebrate Lay Ministries.

New Patterns for Worship: Here are the freshest resources from the Church of England's Common Worship project. Find a comprehensive collection arranged under these headings: Gathering and Greetings, Penitence, Liturgy of the Word, Psalms and Canticles, Creeds and Authorized Affirmations of Faith, Prayers, Praise and Thanksgiving, Peace, Action and Movement, Conclusion. Some may seem familiar, but scroll through each section fully (including the stories and notes for usage) and you're sure to find a gem.

An Order for Holy Communion: More from the Church of England's Common Worship files. Take special note of Order One and its eight Eucharistic prayers, and the various Supplementary Texts.

Renewing Worship Project: As part of its church-wide liturgical renewal process, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has posted a large selection of new resources online for public use in worship. They welcome participation and reflection from Episcopalian friends.

Check out these sermons, stories, and intercessory prayers written by English priest Janice Scott.

Prayers of the People: Intercessions for Sundays and feasts, keyed to the three-year lectionary. Written by Ormonde Plater, archdeacon of the Diocese of Louisiana.

By the Book

Book of Common Prayer (1979)

Common Worship (Church of England)

The Anglican Liturgical Library: A broad collection of liturgical texts used throughout the Anglican Communion and beyond.

To use the following textual resources, you'll have to order them:

Scripture and Preaching Resources

The Text This Week has an extensive collection of links to sermons, articles, and study aids keyed to the lectionary, with reference to the BCP lectionary as well as to the Revised Common Lectionary.

SarahLaughed.net offers reflections each week on lessons for the coming Sunday in the lectionary of the Episcopal Church from biblical scholar and preacher Sarah Dylan Breuer.

Faith Inkubators offers a free series called Women of the Word on women in scripture, and College Devotions, which they encourage friends and family of college students to e-mail to them along with personal notes to encourage them in their faith journey.

Church Publishing makes Spanish-language resources available in electronic form as part of the upgrade Rite Stuff 1.5. The BCP in Spanish is also included in Rite Brain 2004.

Crossings, an international ecumenical group with Lutheran roots and aimed at weaving faith and work life together, posts their Sabbatheology lectionary text studies. Note that pages are listed in reverse chronological order, with Advent at the bottom of the page. A listserv is also available.

Sermons that Work showcases sermons from around the Episcopal Church and the greater Anglican world. They are available for download.

Episcopal lectionary by calendar

Episcopal lectionary with resources

Revised Common Lectionary

All-in-One Bible Versions and Translations: This database gives users direct access to the major Bible search engines on the Web. For the Revised Standard Version (RSV) and New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), you'll need the Bible Study Tools on Crosswalk engine. For various modern, ancient, and biblical languages — including Spanish, Haitian-Creole, French, Portuguese, Swahili, Korean, Chinese, Arabic, Vietnamese, and dozens more — check out The Unbound Bible, produced by Biola University.

SAMUEL (Scripture and Memory: A Universal Ecumenical Library) A popular, comprehensive resource for worship, Bible study, and sermon preparation, developed by the United Church of Christ and keyed to the Revised Common Lectionary.

Servicios Koinonia: This popular site features Spanish-language preaching resources and Bible commentary, much of it from a liberation theology-informed perspective.

Sermons and Sermon-Lectionary Resources is an exhaustive collection of liturgical resources of all sorts, based on the Revised Common Lectionary and compiled by Richard Fairchild of Golden, British Columbia.

Dramatic Presentations of Scripture

Steve Taylor — "Emergent Kiwi" to Internet blog readers — posts about an evening service with a powerful visual center of flames from a stone. You can find out how he did it and what he did with it here.

The Village Shepherd is the home for Janice Scott's sermons, stories and intercessory prayers.

General Ecumenical Resources

Do the Rite Thing: Ecumenism is about being good neighbors in faith, but it doesn't mean "anything goes" liturgically. Section G of the 2002 Handbook for Ecumenism outlines the road rules for shared worship across denominational lines.

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is the home page for the Lutheran effort to reform their liturgy for the twenty-first century.

Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada: This is probably one of the single most comprehensive (and well-organized) sites for liturgical resources on the Web.

United Methodist Church is a strong site for liturgical resources of all sorts, including music and images.

United Church of Christ is another comprehensive site for liturgical resources, including the UCC Book of Worship, SAMUEL (see under "Scripture and Preaching Resources") and Worship Ways, a great, lectionary-based worship resource center.

Presbyterian Church USA: This is the home page for the Presbyterian effort to create liturgy that speaks to a new generation.

Reformed Church in America: An excellent resource, particularly for work in drama and the visual arts. Be sure to see their beautiful litanies covering such themes as racial justice, peace, supplication, and Pentecost.