More than six months after the draft version of Common Prayer: Resources for gospel-shaped gatherings was given to members of Sydney Synod – and the chairman of the Archbishop of Sydney’s Liturgical Panel, Bishop Rob Forsyth, asked for feedback – the panel has received responses about all elements of the book from more than 50 clergy and lay people.
“We have been very pleased with the feedback we’ve received, and that some went to a great deal of effort and took it very seriously,” Bishop Forsyth says. “There were some issues raised we hadn’t thought of… people are much happier with the fundamentals than I expected but in the detailed work a lot of people have really contributed.
“A lot of the responses came in very quickly, and they ranged from one clergyman – living in a far part of the Diocese – who went through the book with a fine tooth comb on the train and wrote a very detailed and very helpful response… to an 8am communion service where all the members were asked to write their ideas out and send them in.”
Retired clergy and bishops have responded, as well as people based outside the Diocese. Bishop Forsyth says the issues raised set the agenda for the liturgical panel’s first meeting after Synod, and resulted in the inclusion of a confirmation service and revisions to some praise and prayer services, communion services, the baptism service and the second marriage service.
The latter, he says, “was the least prepared when we [put the draft book out]” – adding the vows had included the words ‘with my body I will love, nourish and cherish you’ which, one respondent observed, made it sound like the potential spouse was about to be eaten.
For Bishop Forsyth, taking the draft to Synod was “undoubtedly the right process, because we as a panel have done an awful lot of work and reading, yet [the result] was not quite the way it should be… You can put 1000 things on the web and nobody takes notice of it – you put a book in their hands and it has much more impact.”
Feedback can be sent to www.commonprayer.org.au until mid-year, after which the panel will prepare a final draft to present to Synod 2012.
