Power Point can be good

Monday, July 20, 2009

Power Point can be good

I will be a little lazy this week.

Here is a lovely post by Lisa Fox, describing a visit to a new church plant somewhere in the States - an Episcopal church plant, so "BCP" = the (American) Book of Common Prayer. Read it all here.

2 comments:

Lisa Fox said...: Thanks for the link.

I've continued to ponder that worship experience through the ensuing week. Here's another insight I had today, as I was talking with our priest about it.

It has often struck me that long-time Episcopalians (who surely have most of the service memorized by this point) nonetheless keep their noses in their prayer books throughout the service. After just a few years in the Episcopal Church (U.S.), I had the Sunday eucharist service memorized so that I seldom needed to consult the prayer book.

Our supply priest today has also served in that new parish I wrote about. Here's what he observed today: The way we generally worship (with noses in the prayer book) is like a family gathered around the breakfast table, all reading the morning newspaper and scarcely interacting. When we are "cut loose" from the prayer book, we tend to be more aware of those around us, and there can be a heightened (or at least different) sense of community.

I think there's something to that.

As you'll know from my blogpost, I expected the PowerPoint to be something I would (just barely) tolerate. It surprised me to see some of the benefits.; July 27, 2009 at 8:06 AM
Peter Carrell said...: Hi Lisa
Noses in the prayer book is precisely an NZ Anglican problem too. By contrast when at Catholic Mass I notice how much is memorized, how many faces are facing the priest, eyes lifted to heaven!; July 27, 2009 at 9:08 PM

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Welcome

Welcome to this blog about Preaching and Worship.

I also have two other blogs which may interest you:

Anglican Down Under

Hermeneutics and Human Dignity

On Preaching and Worship - Anglican style Down Under I aim to post weekly, usually on or about Sunday. Mostly I post on some aspect of preaching and worship, often with a 'how to' angle (sometimes, especially if talking about my mistakes, with a 'how not to' angle)!

I see this blog as complementary to a very important website on worship matters, Liturgy, presided over by my friend and colleague Bosco Peters.

In my present role as Director of Education for the Diocese of Christchurch (NZ) I am not tied to one parish so some Sundays I am a parishioner in the pews and other Sundays I am preacher or presider or both. If you have been to church with me recently please do not think I am blogging about that service (unless I explicitly do so). It is likely, however, that something in the service has got me thinking about how we can better prepare for worship, lead liturgy, and preach God's Word. We serve God. Why not aim to do it to the very very best of our ability?

Key Terms

Two Year Cycle - the cyle of readings in the NZPB associated with Sunday themes, Sentences and Collects
ACANZP - Anglican Church of Aotearoa New Zealand and Polynesia
NZPB - A New Zealand Prayer Book (or the 1989 'Red Book' of ACANZP
RCL - Revised Common Lectionary (3 year cycle)
Continuous - (in the RCL) mostly continuous reading of the Old Testament with that reading independent of New Testament readings
Related - (in the RCL) Old Testament reading and the psalm are related to the Gospel reading of the day

Words to encourage liturgy and preaching

It helps enormously to have not only the discipline of the daily Offices, the daily Eucharist here, but actually a praying community. Prayers are offered quite early. Every morning, therefore, I have an opportunity to remind myself that what matters is not the Church of England or the Anglican Communion but the act of God in Jesus Christ for the salvation of the world. When I am inclined to think that the whole thing is falling apart and that I am making a more than usually bad job of it, the transforming thing has got to be, and in my experience always is, renewing a sense of gratitude. Whether the Church of England survives or not, whether the archbishop of Canterbury survives or not, Christ still died on the cross and rose again, and that’s enough to keep you going for quite a few lifetimes.
Archbishop Rowan Williams

Preaching and Worship - Anglican style Down Under

Monday, July 20, 2009