"Church turns back time to attract flock"

Greaves, Paul. 2008. "Church turns back time to attract flock." Western Morning News (Plymouth), August 25. 16. Newspaper Source Plus, EBSCOhost (accessed October 14, 2010).

The Book of Common Prayer is being used as part of campaign to encourage people back to church.
Paul Greaves

The Book of Common Prayer is being used as part of campaign to encourage people back to church.

The traditional Church of England text, dating from 1662, has been out of favour with clergy in recent years and gradually replaced by more modern versions since the 1960s.

But the Prayer Book Society, which campaigns for its wider use, says blame for falling congregation numbers can be put down partly to the use of modern texts designed to make services easier to understand.

The Anglican movement has organised a Back to Church Sunday in September and the Prayer Book Society thinks it is the perfect time to reintroduce the traditional prayer book as a way of encouraging people back to the pews.

Society chairman Prudence Dailey said: "Many churches introduced new-style services in the belief that they would increase attendance, but the statistics suggest that the opposite is true."

The Book of Common Prayer was first produced to provide a set formula for services such as morning prayer, evening prayer, the Litany, and Holy Communion. It also includes occasional services like marriage, baptism and confirmation.

As congregation numbers began to fall in the 1960s - just over one million people now attend every week - the Church introduced alternatives, settling on Common Worship in 2002.

The idea was to make worship easier to understand by using modern language and grammar instead of 17th century text.

But traditionalists argue that by replacing phrases and words used for hundreds of years, the Church has lost some of the mystery of worship and the celebration of beautiful language.

Services differ in each version. The Book of Common Prayer sets out the words used in the marriage service as follows: "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here in the sight of God and in the face of this congregation to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony."

Common Worship states: "We have come together in the presence of God to witness the marriage of N and N, to ask his blessing, and on them and to share in their joy."

Miss Dailey said: "The good news is that many parishes still use the book, although in some it's relegated to early morning communion and evensong, whereas we feel it still has a place in the main Sunday service."

Many parish priests, while supporting the Book of Common Prayer, believe it is not practical to rely solely on a text which in some parts dates back more than 400 years.

The Rev David Witchell, vicar at St Paul's in Torquay, said: "Although the Book of Common Prayer is a very beautiful form of worship, it doesn't relate to a lot of people today.

"In places where there are a lot of younger people and families, I think most churches have to compromise."