At St Paul's we try to make our worship accessible and relevant. We want to make sure that everyone who worships with us feels welcome and is able to participate. We're careful to use language that's not impenetrable, keeping the Christian jargon that sometimes baffles newcomers to a minimum. We laugh, we sing, we honour God with reverence but also with a generous informality.
So what's a church like St Paul's doing planning a service using the Book of Common Prayer?
Most of our regular congregation has never used the "prayer book" for worship. It's unfamiliar and because of its seventeenth-century language, it's not easy. But sometimes things that are difficult are good for us.
We're going to use the Book of Common Prayer for a one-off communion service on Trinity Sunday, 30 May 2010. We'll be singing contemporary worship songs and we won't be dressing up in historic costumes. But we'll offer God our praise and prayers using the liturgy of this work of reformed theology from an era of political controversy. What will we discover? Come along and see for yourself.
