Anglican Service Book - Structure

Structure

The Anglican Service Book is a compilation of material from a number of sources focused around the structure of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. It provides all Rite I services, together with rites, offices, and services in traditional language which appear solely in the modern idiom in the 1979 BCP. Additional supplementary service material, commonly used in many parishes, has been included, in the hope that this work might meet devotional needs which are not addressed in the prayer book. Brief essays on the sacraments and services of the Church have been placed before the rites as a teaching tool. The Coverdale Psalter has also been included to provide the texts in the traditional idiom.

Throughout the book (except in Additional Devotions), material within a rite which is supplementary is delineated by a line along the left hand side of the page or by brackets and italics. In a few places, however, traditional forms of services have been substituted or added (e.g. Communion of the Sick and the Absolution of the Dead). Most of the supplementary material is from the 1928 and older editions of the Book of Common Prayer, The Anglican Missal, and the American Missal. Almost all of it is commonplace in the worship life of many parishes and is therefore included for their convenience. To facilitate corporate worship, effort has been made to make the services as easy to follow as possible and conventions such as bold-face type for all congregational responses have been adopted.

A few elements in the prayer book are beyond the scope of the project, specifically the Lectionary, the Ordination of a Bishop, and the Catechism. Other resources are available for those items. The project began at The Church of the Good Shepherd in Rosemont, Pennsylvania, from the need to consolidate service material in a form which would be easy to follow.