An overview of the nature of Anglican worship and the inherent simplicity within the rites and rubrics gleaned from primary and secondary sources in the tradition, combined with a good dose of reason. George Wayne Smith is a native of Texas and a graduate of Baylor University. He also holds advanced and professional degrees from Baylor, Nashotah House, and the University of the South. He has chaired liturgy commissions in two dioceses and is a member of the Association of Diocesan Liturgy and Music Commissions. He is the former bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri. Admirable Simplicity Principles for Worship Planning in the Anglican Tradition By George Wayne Smith Church Publishing Incorporated Copyright © 1996 George Wayne Smith All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-89869-261-7 Contents PrefaceChapter 1: The Anglican WayChapter 2: The Daily OfficeChapter 3: Baptism and ConfirmationChapter 4: The EucharistChapter 5: The Pastoral OfficesChapter 6: Planning the LiturgyBibliography CHAPTER 1 The Anglican Way THE REMARKABLE VARIETY OF LITURGICAL PRACTICES in the Episcopal Church leadsmany observers to assume that most decisions about worship have to do with tasteor personal preference. Subjectivity often rules, and even when planners keepsubjectivity in check, suspicions of subjectivity abound. Parishionersfrequently surmise that the proclivities (and even idiosyncrasies) of theirpriest, more than anything else, set the agenda for the parish worship. Clergyof every sort—evangelicals, anglo-catholics, charismatics, liberals, and evenrubrical fanatics—often presume to have a right, based in the worship canons, tosuperimpose their preferences on a parish, with little or no regard for thetraditions of that worshiping community or the greater Anglican heritage. Doesanyone expect to find a definable core for Anglican liturgical practice beyondthese subjective bases? Moreover, the aesthetic issues often determine many of the decisions aboutparish liturgy. A passion for "the beauty of holiness" has marked the Anglicanway, but even this norm becomes problematic in an age when a common language fordescribing the good, the beautiful, and the true has collapsed. The worldwidecommunity of Christianity called Anglicanism lacks a consensus when it comes toaesthetic concerns, and this lack of consensus plagues our conversations when wegather to plan our liturgies. In many parishes the liturgy becomes a focus for pastoral conflicts of everysort, a microcosm of other struggles around issues of authority, taste,propriety, and necessity. Many are the battles fought over music (renewal ortraditional? hymnal or song-book? guitars or tracker organ? choir orcongregation?), ceremonial (restrained or fulsome? modest or elaborate?), andlanguage (Rite I or Rite II? Prayer Book or supplemental texts for inclusivelanguage? or missal? or earlier Prayer Book?). The parish and the wise pastorlearn together to navigate these unsettled waters and even to direct the energyfrom the storm into a kind of creativity. The unwary pastor, ill-prepared orthinking it possible to navigate the waters alone, will sink. Anglican liturgydepends heavily on the priest and pastor having a sense, even a charism, forplanning the liturgy and presiding in it. But Anglican liturgy is more about thepeople than about the presider. From the first Prayer Book in 1549, theliturgical quest of Anglicanism has been to recover worship as truly leit-ourgia ,a "work of the people," which is the root meaning of this Greek word.The most recent American Prayer Book invites us to take the next step in thismovement of recovering the liturgy for all God's people, a movement begun inArchbishop Thomas Cranmer's remarkable sixteenth-century reforms, the first stepin this continuing Anglican quest. One of my assumptions for this work is that the 1979 Book of Common Prayerbrings to fruition some of the fondest ideals of the early reformers. Cranmer'snotions about weekly celebration of eucharist as a norm for worship, forexample, never took root in practice, with but rare exceptions. Morning prayer,litany, and antecommunion comprised the usual routine of Sunday worship untilthe latter part of the nineteenth century, when the weekly celebration ofeucharist became more common (though nowhere universal) in the parishes. BCP1979 recovers Cranmer's assumptions about weekly communion and articulates themmore clearly than any previous Prayer Book, making the implementation morepractical. Now, nearly everywhere in the Episcopal Church, people have agreedthat the chief act of worship on Sunday will be the celebration of theeucharist. This widespread consensus of practice represents not only somethingentirely new but also a reasonable progression from our origins. The practice isthoroughly Anglican. Another assumption in this work is that the Anglican tradition in worship oftensuggests paths for finding creativity through controversy. Let us admit that thehistory o