Next year is the 350th anniversary of The Book of Common Prayer. A travelling exhibition is being created to bring the BCP 350th message to a wide audience. Several cathedrals and landmark libraries have agreed to display it.
The exhibition will demonstrate how the Book of Common Prayer helped to define English language and culture, as well as helping to shape the faith and culture of Anglicans throughout the world.
“This is very exciting”, says Trevor Butler of the Prayer Book Society, “and we are delighted that prestigious venues have shown such enthusiastic support at this early stage.”
Others wishing to mount the colourful and informative exhibition panels should contact Trevor Butler by email: pr@pbs.org.uk
Churches and Clergy Co-ordinator
In August of this The Prayer Book Society appointed a life-long Anglican to promote traditional church services which are under threat.
John Service, who lives at Goring Heath in Berkshire, is the Prayer Book Society’s first Churches and Clergy Co-ordinator. The new position has been created to boost the use and understanding of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer in parish churches up and down the country.
“We are delighted to have been able to appoint John”, says Prudence Dailey, the Prayer Book Society’s chairman. “He is well-known to many of our members, being a long-time member and supporter of the Society, a one-time trustee and, for several years, the Society’s voluntary chief executive. In this new role he has taken on a very different remit as we work to promote the Book of Common Prayer in Church life today.”
Among John’s duties are to engage with clerics in training as well as working clergy by arranging training days to supplement the lack of instruction in the Church’s founding liturgy during modern ordination training. “I shall also be establishing a network of clergy, at all levels, who are sympathetic to the 1662 Prayer Book”, explains John. Another key facet of the job is to increase the number of churches who are corporate members of the Prayer Book Society. “I shall be travelling the length and breadth of the country to visit those places of worship with a particular commitment to the BCP”, he adds.