When Innocent III became pope in 1198 he announced that he had been elevated to a position between God and man. This audacious claim has often been quoted to characterize the papal monarchy over which he presided and the secular powers he wielded for the eighteen years of his controversial tenure. The sermons presented in this rich collection cast a clearer light on Innocent's concept of what his duties were as priest and bishop.
Innocent was renowned as a preacher, one who faithfully fulfilled that pastoral duty throughout his career. The group of sermons featured in this book represents only a small sample of his homiletic works. That they are almost exclusively devoted to spiritual concerns provides valuable insight into Innocent's papal priorities.
The six sermons included are: the inaugural sermon of Innocent's consecration, the opening sermon of Lateran Council IV, an anniversary sermon, two Roman Synod sermons, and another on the constitution of the priesthood. The major theme throughout the sermons is the responsibility of clergy to function as intermediaries between divinity and humanity, particularly in preaching and in administering the sacraments. Also included in the book is a translation of Innocent's treatise on preaching. In it Innocent gives practical advice to the preachers, whose office he believes to be the most important function of the priesthood.
The translators have done well in transmitting the clarity of Innocent's prose, which was often brilliant and sometimes poetic. They have provided an historical context for the sermons, as well as rhetorical analyses to enhance the sermons' relevance for the modern reader. As an example of Innocent's role asa pastor, spiritual director, and moral leader, this book is a valuable complement to the many studies of his secular and political achievements.
Corinne J. Vause is a former lecturer in the Department of Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Frank C. Gardiner was Professor Emeritus of English at UCSB.

This important work engages with a long historical debate: were the earliest Christians under the direction of ordained ministers, or under the influence of inspired laypeople? Who was in charge: bishops, elders and deacons, or apostles, prophets and teachers? Rather than trace Church offices backwards, Burtchaell examines the contemporary Jewish communities and finds evidence that Christians simply continued the offices of the synagogue. Thus, he asserts that from the very first they were presided over by officers. The author then advances the provocative view that in the first century it was not the officers who spoke with the most authority. They presided, but did not lead, and deferred to more charismatic laypeople. Burtchaell sees the evidence in favor of the Catholic/Orthodox/Anglican view that bishops have always presided in the Christian Church. At the same time he argues alongside the Prostestants that in its formative era the Church deferred most to the judgment of those who were inspired, yet never ordained.

This book presents three liturgical rights within an Afro-Baptist oral tradition of worship: the Wednesday night prayer meeting, the Deacon's devotion, and the Congregational worship. This examination provides one foundational study necessary to the creation of a liturgical theology of African American Christianity, through the study of sacred ritual within the lived experience of members of a community of traditional orallity and contemporary literacy, which together create a unique collective encounter of the Holy.

N T Wright offers reflections on the Sunday readings in the Revised Common Lectionary for Year B. This book brings together his widely read columns in the Church Times, and also contains new pieces, to cover all the Sundays and major festivals. Scholarship, history and insights into the world and language of the Bible are woven together to give a deeper understanding of the Word of the Lord. This book will be invaluable to anyone who wants to gather their thoughts in preparation for Sunday worship, or for regular Bible study throughout the year.

'When people come together before their God and each other as an experience of community, we often find that the love and courage and truth which is released goes beyond the sum total of our human hopes. In rituals of healing and forgiveness there is also something of an enacting of faith. We, who find it hard to believe in our forgiveness, or healing, or some other hope, commit ourselves in faith to affirming before others that we are forgiven or healed or given a new hope'. This book offers inspiration for anyone involved in leading or preparing worship. Liberating and vivid, often drawing on the power of symbol and ritual, these prayers and liturgies show faith, forgiveness and healing affirmed and enacted in worship together.

What Roger Ferlo did for the Bible in Opening the Bible, volume 2 of The New Church s Teaching Series, Jeffrey Lee now does for the prayer book in volume 7 of the series. Opening the Prayer Book introduces us to the history and liturgies of The Book of Common Prayer, and helps us understand why the prayer book is such an important aspect of Anglican self-understanding. Lee begins with the fundamental question, What is common prayer? He explores some of the ways in which our worship according to The Book of Common Prayer affects who we are as a church, and the way it shapes our lives of faith. In chapter 2 Lee turns to the development of patterns of liturgy from the time of Jesus to the Reformation, tracing changes in the primary liturgies of baptism, eucharist, and daily prayer. The American prayer book is the focus of chapter 3, from the earliest revisions in the new nation through the liturgical scholarship that led to the substantial theological and liturgical changes in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. Chapter 4 begins a survey of the pages of the prayer book itself. Lee examines in particular the liturgies of Holy Week and Easter, baptism and eucharist, and the daily office, with a view to understanding the way the parts of the services are rooted in the historical prayers of the church and at the same time reflect the living tradition of Christians today. This theme is further developed in chapter 5, which focuses on the prayer book and our common life. Here Lee discusses questions of how a common prayer book can be responsive to a growing variety of pastoral situations and diverse cultures in a fast-changing world. The final chapter addresses the future of the prayer book within the Anglican Communion, in light of demands for further revision and for greater freedom to adapt the prayer book to local needs and beliefs. As with each book in The New Church s Teaching Series, recommended resources for further reading and questions for discussion are included.

In Worship Evangelism, Sally Morgenthaler calls the church to consider the remarkable, untapped potential of worship as an opportunity of those who aren't yet followers of Jesus Christ as well as those who are to encounter the presence of God. Combining the best of traditional and contemporary worship music and practices, Morgenthaler shows how to achieve worship that's both culturally relevant and authentic. She helps pastors, worship leaders, and musicians - Understand worship and its attraction for non-Christians - Tear down walls that keep unbelievers from meeting God in church worship - Make worship evangelism happen--in any culture Morgenthaler draws on sound research and her extensive experience as a worship leader to offer an energetic, hands-on approach. Now with a study guide that encourages group discussion and personal action, this timely book offers fresh vision for worship evangelism and provides the strategies to implement it.

In these meditations on the lesser feasts and fasts of the church calendar Sam Portaro asks the question, "What do these saints and commemorations have to say to Christians today?" His answers are often surprising and always thought-provoking, with fresh insights into the lives and teachings of those who have gone before us in the Christian faith. The cycle of the year begins in Advent with St. Andrew and ends in late November with Kamehaneha and Emma of Hawaii. Each reflection looks at the scripture readings for the day and focuses on a distinctive attribute of the saint or feast in the light of contemporary questions of faith, mission, and community. Saints of the distant past such as Columba and Agnes, Cyprian and Augustine, Thomas Becket and Catherine of Siena are included, as well as those closer to our own day-Charles Wesley and Julia Emery, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Evelyn Underhill and Jonathan Daniels. Following the calendar provided in Lesser Feasts and Fasts, meditations on the holy days of the church seasons are also included, such as All Saints and the Epiphany." Brightest and Best is designed for a variety of Christian education purposes, including adult forums, confirmation classes, seasonal presentations, clergy groups, and groups of students and young adults. It is equally useful for individuals seeking varied and interesting devotional reading. Although based on the church year, each chapter is discrete and readers can focus on any event or person and begin at any season. Since these pieces began as homilies in a college setting, they are useful as a preaching aid and could be the basis of a homily at a midweek service.

In this third and final volume in a series of ceremonial guides to worship in the Episcopal Church according to "The Book of Common Prayer," Leonel L. Mitchell focuses on the pastoral and occasional liturgies. Beginning with the celebration of the Daily Office, he goes on to discuss the seasonal liturgies beyond the Lent-Easter cycle, including Advent Lessons and Carols, Candlemas, and Rogation processions. The pastoral offices include baptism, marriage, the blessing of homes, reconciliation, ministry to the sick, and burial.Finally, Mitchell concludes with the services involving bishops, including celebrations of new ministries, consecrations of churches, and ordination rites.Like its two companion volumes, Howard E. Galley s "The Ceremonies of the Eucharist" and Mitchell s "Lent, Holy Week, Easter," and "the Great Fifty Days," this new guide offers clear descriptions of ways of celebrating the rites as well as the theological and historical reasons behind them. The book is designed to be useful in churches of all sizes, small and large.

A handy, inexpensive resource, More Welcome Speeches can be used by persons frequently or rarely asked to make welcome speeches. Sample speeches and responses are included which can also be used as a prototype for creating a welcome speech.

More Welcome Speeches provides a quality resource for laypersons in the church. This volume will appeal especially to members of African American churches.

In the African American community, welcoming speeches are important part of each program and service.)

More Welcome Speeches:

- Includes poetry, prayers, recitations, tributes, and installation services

- Offers appropriate Scripture verses for special days

- Provide samples speeches and responses that help the user create his or her own personal talks

- Addresses many different occasions

Well-known liturgical scholar and writer Philip Pfatteicher turns his attention in this book to "liturgical spirituality" as distinct from "liturgy and spirituality," which assumes two essentially separate disciplines."Liturgical spirituality" is a holistic concept, bringing together both liturgy and spirituality with reference to the interior life of the spirit that is formed and nurtured by the church's liturgy. Pfatteicher acknowledges that there are other kinds of spirituality that appear to flourish apart from and in addition to the liturgy: for example, the spirituality of the desert ascetics of the early centuries of christianity, the devotion of the Religious Society of Friends, and many forms of meditation and spiritual discipline such as the Spiritual Exercise of Ignatius Loyola. The focus of the present volume, however, is on the spiritual life as formed by the liturgy, the ordered form of Christian worship, East and West, Catholic and Protestant.In addition to the form of worship one might experience on a Sunday morning, Liturgical Spirituality guides the reader through and into the experience of daily prayer, the Easter Vigil, the Church Year, the Eucharist, hymns and music, Baptism, and even church architecture as "hallowing space."In 1955 Louis Bouyer published an admirable study entitled Liturgical Piety, written before Vatican II and its far-reaching reforms that fundamentally changed the entire Western church. Philip Pfatteicher has now taken up the challenge of expanding upon Bouyer with a current and invigorating study not of "liturgical piety" but of "liturgical spirituality."Philip Phatteicher is Professor of English at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania, a frequent writer and lecturer on liturgical issues, and author of A Dictionary of Liturgical Terms and The School of the Church: Worship and Christian Formation, both published by Trinity Press.

Argues from a wide range of evidence that the Gospels were not written each for a specific church or community, but were intended for general circulation throughout all the early churches.

In 1993 and 1994, The Centre for Christianity and the Arts at the Institute of Church History, University of Copenhagen, arranged symposia with liturgy and the arts in the Middle Ages as the uniting theme. Scholars, with different professional backgrounds and from different European countries, as well as from the USA, presented papers of which 11 are collected and published in this book.

This ecumenical collection of prayers, liturgies and rituals seeks to illustrate the impressive creativity fo liturgy from the ground up - from congregations, groups and individuals struggling to come to terms with change and all the celebration and loss which that involves. A wealth of human experiences is explored and expressed through experimental rituals: expressions of god, namings, affirming relationships, separating, dying, grieving, healing, retirement, abortion, miscarriage, and much more. It is hoped that this anthology will imspire and enable others to construct their own liturgies, rituals, blessings and prayers. Hannah Ward and Jennifer Wild are former members of Anglican religious orders. They are co-founders of Womanpsace, a spritituality programme. Their book Guard the Chaos: Finding Meaning in Change was published in 1995.

The Psalms rank among the most important books of the Old Testament, yet to many the 150 songs, prayers and poems remain obscure and inaccessible. This book offers a nwe general introduction to the Psalms. Professor Seybold guides the reader through the most important aspects of the history and form of the Psalm texts and the major questions of critical scholarship, and discusses leading writers on the subject. A wide range of specific topics is covered: historical background, literary form, classification, and parallels in other soruce of ancient literature. The section on Library Form provides a useful introduction to the speech patterns of Hebrew verse, written in such a way that students without Hebrew may also benefit. The final chapters deal with the way the Psalms have been interpreted and used in worship over the last 2000 years. This is a book to help the student find his or her bearings and to suggest directions for further study. It will be an invaluable textbook for all students of Old Testament and Biblical Studies, as well as literature generally, and of great interest to all those who approach the Psalms for the first time. Klaus Seybold is Professor of Old Testament Studies at the University of Basel. R. Graeme Dunphy is a Minister of the Church of Scotland in Culloden.

Accessible background and insights on each scripture text in the three-year Sunday lectionary cycle. An invaluable resource for preachers, lectors, liturgical musicians, catechists and more.

Eucharist is a detailed history of the Christian Eucharistic formularies. Bouyer gives a thorough analysis of the Jewish meal prayers, the berakoth, to which he traces the origins of the eucharistic rite, and ends with the recent addition of new eucharistic prayers to the Roman rite. He also includes the history of the various forms of the early Christian liturgies, of the Byzantine, Gallican, and Mozarabic Eucharists, of the changes introduced during the Reformation, and of developments in the Anglican, Lutheran, and Reformed traditions.

"Unlike liturgical manuals of the past, which were intended specifically for the use of the clergy, this book is directed to a wider audience-to members of parish worship committees, priests, organists and directors of music, lectors, deacons, cantors and other singers, bishops, altar guild members, acolytes-in short, to all who bear responsability for the planning and conduct of public worship." -from the Preface So begins Howard Galley's classic guide to the Eucharistic liturgy, The Ceremonies of the Eucharist. Galley opens his formidable liturgical learning and veteran ecclesial experience for all worshippers to access. Throughout, he enhances his suggestions for practice with "the rationale and historical background" for his recommendations.

To a deplorable extent, Christians accept Church rituals as sacred but baffling heirlooms from the Church's past. It is to remedy this situation that Father Danielou has written this book. The Bible and the Liturgy illuminates, better than has ever before been done, the vital and meaningful bond between Bible and liturgy. Father Danielou aims at bringing clearly before his reader's minds the fact that the Church's liturgical rites and feasts are intended, not only to transmit the grace of the sacraments, but to instruct the faithful in their meaning as well as the meaning of the whole Christian life. It is through the sacraments in their role as signs that we learn. So that their value will be appreciated, Danielou attempts to help us rediscover the significance of these rites so that the sacraments may once again be thought of as the prolongation of the great works of God in the Old Testament and the New.

R.J. Urquhart provides the first systematic description of the ceremonial of the Sarum Mass in 500 years. Using a variety of sources, and tracing the Sarum rite and its occasional use from the Act of Supremacy through to modern times, Urquhart has compiled a volume that offers the best possible reconstruction and overview of these profoundly beautiful rites from the liturgical treasury of the Church. Urquhart considers Sarum in the light of Pope Benedict XVI's groundbreaking apostolic constitution, Anglicanorum Coetibus, and how this has reopened the question of the catholicity of part of the Anglican patrimony. He also considers the impact of Pope Benedict's Summorum Pontificum and its proposition that what was sacred for earlier generations remains sacred now, arguing that this supremely pastoral teaching calls for a more profound and detailed study of the rite. Urquhart covers all aspects of the ritual, beginning with an outline of the vessels, books and vestments and then moving on to outline both Low and High Mass, special forms, processions and blessings, and the ritual year. Appendices cover the role of the laity, and offer an Ordo Missae with simple rubrics.

Christian churches in recent decades have taken some steps in their practices of liturgy and worship toward acknowledging the graced dignity of human variety. But who is still excluded? What pernicious norms still govern below the surface, and how might they be revealed? How do texts, gestures, and space abet and enforce such norms? How might Christian assemblies gather multiple expressions of human difference to propose through Christian liturgy patterns of graced interaction in the world around them? Liturgy with a Difference gathers a broad range of international theologians and scholars to interrogate current practices of liturgy and worship in order to unmask ways in which dehumanizing majoritarianisms and presumed norms of gender, culture, ethnicity, and body, among others, remain at work in congregations. Together, the chapters in this collection call for a liturgical practice that recognizes and rehearses the vivid richness of God's image found in the human community and glimpsed, if only for a moment, in liturgical celebration. They point a way beyond mere inclusion toward a generous embrace of the many differences that make up the Christian community. With contributions from Rachel Mann, Teresa Berger, Susannah Cornwall, Miguel A. DeLa Torre, Edward Foley, W. Scott Haldeman, Michael Jagessar, Bruce T. Morrill, Kristine Suna-Koro and Frank Senn. Foreword by Ann Loades.

The Christian practice of hymn singing, says renowned biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann, is a countercultural act. It marks the Christian community as different from an unforgiving and often ungrateful culture. It is also, he adds, an "absurd enterprise in the midst of the hyper-busy, market-driven society that surrounds us. In this helpful and engaging volume, Brueggemann discusses both why we sing and what we sing. The first part of the book examines the Psalms and what they can teach us about the reasons that corporate song is a part of the Christian tradition. The second part looks at fifteen popular hymns, including classic and contemporary ones such as Blest Be the Ties That Binds, God's Eye Is on the Sparrow, Once to Every Man and Nation, Someone Asked the Question, and We Are Marching in the Light of God, and the reasons why they have caught our imagination. To know why we sing, Brueggemann writes, may bring us to a deeper delight in our singing and a strengthened resolve to sing without calculation before the God who is enthroned on the praises of Israel (Ps. 22:3).

No matter how great Sunday's worship service was, there's always another Sunday lurking at the end of the next week that must be planned. Church leaders often fall into ruts, working on automatic pilot just trying to get things together, which does not allow for much creativity or focus on designing services that lead to transformation for those involved in them.
"Engage" is a step-by-step, stress-free guide to planning worship services that allow for and foster true life change. Comprehensive in scope, "Engage" provides teaching pastors, worship leaders, and volunteers with the tools they need to work together to develop and implement a worship planning system that improves communication, enhances creativity, and honors Jesus every week.

Though it may not be immediately obvious why articles on topics from such distantly removed areas of western Europe - the Iberian peninsula and southern Italy - should appear in the same volume (the fourth collection by Roger Reynolds), the materials covered illustrate that they are indeed closely related, both in their differences and their similarities. Both peninsulas had their own indigenous liturgies and music (Old Spanish and Beneventan), distinctive written scripts (Visigothic and Beneventan), and legal and theological traditions, and repeatedly these worked their influence on other areas of western Europe. Although there were frequent attempts by the papacy and secular rulers from the 9th to the 13th century to suppress these distinctive traditions in both areas, elements of these nonetheless survived well into the 16th century and beyond. Despite the differences in these traditions, the articles in this volume also demonstrate through manuscript evidence the continued exchange of the distinctive customs between the Iberian peninsula and southern Italian cultures from the very early Middle Ages through the 12th century.