Vicars Letter
The Church of England and its prayer
The Church of England often gets a bad press, sometimes it deserves it: membersare acting in a mean or destructive way. Often it does not deserve it; it comes through misunderstandings about its nature and ignorance about its history.
I think that while there is no doubt that the Church of England could be better, it has three particular strengths to build on. First, it does not define doctrine and behaviour in a narrow way. Its basic stance it to say being a Christian is loving God and our neighbour. The way to love God is to participate in the Sunday Liturgy of the Church and personal prayer and bible reading each day. The way to love our neighbour is to seeks first to serve as we are able those in our parish and then extend this generous service more widely as opportunity comes. Secondly, the Church of England is prescriptive about its liturgy. Clergy at their ordination and appointment have to promise to use only authorised liturgies. The Sunday Liturgy is the Eucharist, only certain texts may be used for the Eucharistic Prayer, the confession and absolution, the collect of the day. Thirdly, the parish system not only gives the church a specific mission, serve these people who live in this area but it gathers together a diverse group of people not on the basis of likes or dislikes, interests or ways of life but because here is where they happen to live.
The Archbishops' Council has sent to each parish a video entitled 'Restoring Hope in the church'. This asks each parish to review their prayer, their small groups and their involvement in the local community. I want to say more in this letter about our prayer. The best book in recent years about prayer is George Guiver, C.R. 'Company of Voices' (Canterbury Press 2nd edition 2001). The book starts, 'Many Christians today do not pray, and this is something that is true both of laity and clergy. The cause is a mystery. I suspect this is true about many in our parish.
This last year we have done a number of things to try to help. We had a week of accompanied prayer, Priscilla had four evenings in the autumn on more imaginative prayer, we had a summer group in All Saints on the bible as a whole and our prayer, at St Stephen's in the Autumn on the Gospel passages and prayer, and in Lent on the letter to the Ephesians and prayer. Elizabeth has started a parish prayer for an hour on two Wednesdays a month and is to have a monthly Prayer and Praise on the last Sunday evening of the month. (This last is not a substitute for the Sunday Liturgy; it does not conform to the rules governing Church of England worship; it is an additional help to our praying.)
The question I wish to ask is what else would help. We are different; ways that help some will not necessarily help others. Please consider this and discuss it with others. This will be discussed further at the PCC meeting on 8th July. In considering this it is helpful to make a distinction between praying the Sunday Liturgy and our personal daily prayers. We need to consider always both how we can pray the Sunday liturgy as well as how we can say our daily prayers. May God bless us and guide us in all our endeavours.
Christopher Morgan-Jones
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