Explanation

In response to Resolution 2015-A169, the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music is submitting two options for the revision of the Book of Common Prayer 1979. Resolution A068, the first option, calls for the comprehensive revision to begin in this triennium. The language of prayer must necessarily expand in relation to the new missionary challenges that face the church in the world today. Resolution A068 calls the church to engage the process of revision with prayerful attention to both the riches of the BCP 1979 and its acknowledged deficits, with a keen appreciation of how the prayer book works to form the mind of the church as it grows into the fullness of Christ. The proposed revision intends that we will faithfully adhere to the historic rites of the Church Universal as they have been received and interpreted within the Anglican tradition of common prayer. At the same time, we admit that there is no perfect liturgy, no liturgy that can be “all things to all people,” neither is there “anything… so well devised, or so established, which in continuance of time hath not been corrupted” (as the Preface to the Book of Common Prayer 1549 notes). Nevertheless, this Church remains committed to the calling of common prayer. It is, therefore, necessary that prayer book revision hold in tension the competing demands of unity and diversity, a tension in which the Spirit is at work. The revision process will facilitate the involvement of the Church at the parish, diocesan, and provincial levels while also consulting with Episcopal seminaries, the Liturgical Commissions of other provinces of the Anglican Communion, full communion partners, ecumenical partners, and racial and ethnic communities across our Anglican province. With this level of deep conversation, we hope that the revision will be responsive to, and solicitous of, the riches of our Church's liturgical, cultural, racial, generational, linguistic, gender and ethnic diversity. The full scope of the proposed process of revision (Option One) and a detailed methodology of the process is presented in the report "Plan for Prayer Book Revision" which is part of the report of the Subcommittee on Revision of The Book of Common Prayer, within the report to the 79th General Convention of the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music. The Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music's report, known as a "blue book" report, is available on the General Convention website (www.generalconvention.org).