When your liturgical texts tell you your parts are abhorrent

At a recent clergy day, the gathered clergy of the Diocese of Milwaukee said Morning Prayer together. In so doing, we said the Te Deum (Rite II) together, and one line jumped out at me: “When you became man to set us free…

Where we stand.

Revision Matters is intended as a forum for Episcopalians to talk about why revision of the Book of Common Prayer matters to us and to our churches. We created this forum because we believe this is an important moment for this conversation in our church.

How the church makes clergy

… and why it should think about changing

I recently found myself attending two ordinations in one week, after not having been to one for quite a while. As a result, the language of the ordination service struck me afresh.

Of queens and fathers

Most of us can readily agree that God isn’t actually a man or male in some fundamental or exclusive sense. And I think many people understand the value in moving away from gendered language for God, with its implication that some humans are made *more* in God’s image than others.

Cake and baptismal ecclesiology

Here’s an argument I have heard often:

We should not revise the Book of Common Prayer because the 1979 BCP has such a beautiful and complete baptismal ecclesiology.

That which we have heard and known…

My church has a Thursday evening liturgy and meal, called Sandbox Worship.

We’ve done various things with the Sandbox, liturgically, over the years. About five weeks ago, we started doing a basic, simple Evening Prayer with Vespers pattern.

On building a new vernacular for worship

I knew the words of the prayers before I could read them in the prayer book. They are my familiar, the words I have always known by heart.

As a writing student, and then as an English teacher, I learned that once I knew the rules of…