Common Worship - Drafting and Approval

Drafting and Approval

The services and resources that comprise Common Worship represent the latest stage of a process of liturgical revision that began in the 1920s. They were originally drafted by the Liturgical Commission. The Commission is made up of a variety of people with different expertise, including lay people, parish clergy and bishops, liturgists, and theologians. The material was passed on to the House of Bishops, which amended the material as it saw fit. It was then presented to the General Synod.

Forms of services that were alternative to equivalents in the Book of Common Prayer were debated by Synod and revised by a synodical Revision Committee in the light of the comments made by Synod members and the wider public. The House of Bishops then reconsidered them, put them into their final form and submitted them to the General Synod for Final Approval as Authorized Services. To be authorized, each service had to gain a two-thirds majority in each House of the Synod (bishops, clergy, and laity).

Additional material, which had no equivalent in the Book of Common Prayer, was debated by the General Synod and then put in its final form and Commended by the House of Bishops.

In the case of authorized services in Common Worship, the Archbishops' Council gave some 800 parishes permission to use draft forms of service on an experimental basis before they were presented to the General Synod. The services were adjusted in the light of feedback from this "field testing".