Rethinking Old Models: Morning Prayer

The last year and a half has been a time that has shaken nearly all of society.  The global pandemic not only has led to four millions of deaths and as many reported illnesses as the population of  the United States, it has had ripple effects on every aspect of our lives.  Isolation led to mental health crises; changes in the way we consume products led to strains on supply chains; and many countries experienced political upheavals.  

The Church was by no means immune to these ripple effects.  In fact, as many congregations are just now resuming worship, I doubt that the full effects on the Church will be seen for many years.  The immediate effects of this are lower attendance, lower pledging, as well as clergy burnout and turnover.  In many ways, the effects of the pandemic simply exacerbated trends that have been happening for years.  

Perhaps one of the three biggest comments I have heard that people missed during the pandemic were that they missed the worship space, they missed the community and they missed the sacraments.  I, myself, identify as an Anglo-Catholic - an Anglican who has a higher sacramental theology and who prefers a more stately and ceremonious liturgy.  Considering my own worship preferences, and the fact that my anecdotal list of things missed during the pandemic include the sacraments, I am going to suggest something radical: We should bring back Morning Prayer as a principal Sunday service.

Historical Context

While there have always been congregations across the Anglican Communion which have regularly included communion in the principal Sunday service, for most of our five-hundred year history, this has been the exception, not the norm.  If one were to imagine taking a photograph at every Anglican Sunday service in history and pinning them on a board, and then throwing a dart at the board, you would be far most likely to hit a picture of a service of Morning Prayer.  In the era of the Episcopal Church's greatest expansion, this was the liturgy that led to the founding of most of our parishes.  If you read most of our parishes' histories, you will see a story of a group of people gathering in a living room or public space for Morning Prayer.

It is worth remembering that a eucharistic celebration as the regular service is relatively new in the Episcopal Church.  This shift began with the 1928 Book of Common Prayer and was solidified with the 1979 Book of Common Prayer.  In many ways this created a cultural shift, which changed the theology of worship in our denomination.  It also attracted converts from the Roman Catholic Church, further embedding the eucharist as the church culture's understanding of the principal service.  

There were a number of factors which led to this shift.  Probably the biggest factor was that parishes in the Episcopal Church were the most financially solvent in their history between 1950 and 1990.  Plus, there was a fairly robust number of priests being ordained in the latter half of the twentieth century.  That allowed nearly every congregation to have a priest of its own.  This was the era of the professional clergy. Side effects of this also meant that the priest would be responsible for the bulk of pastoral care and administration.

Another factor in this was a shift in eucharistic theology.  Communion has always been understood as a unifying sacrament, and one of the two dominical sacraments - the ones that have been considered necessary for a full Christian life.  The other being baptism.  In this same period of Prayer Book reform and professional clergy, there was also a democratization of communion.  With the 1979 Prayer Book, there was no longer a requirement that one should be a confirmed Anglican to receive communion in the Episcopal Church.  It is now canonically required that one only be baptized in any Christian denomination for receiving communion.  

So, what happened to Morning Prayer?  Across the church, it was largely phased out as a principal service.  In my own memory, I only have known the Holy Eucharist as the Sunday service.  By and large, Morning Prayer has shifted to a personal devotion, something done in smaller settings, or the service a church does as a last resort when a priest is not available.  Further, it seems that Morning Prayer is becoming less practiced even as a devotional, since its prominence has diminished as a principal Sunday service.

Changing Paradigms

As I began this post by saying, the pandemic exacerbated trends that were long at play in the Church.  Many congregations are no longer equipped to support a priest's salary and benefits.  When all is added together, including health insurance, pension, etc, one full time priest can cost over $100,000.  This is a completely reasonable amount to budget for a priest.  Most priests have a Masters Degree at minimum, work far more than forty hours a week, and most times have to uproot themselves and their families to take a new call.  As Jesus reminds us: "The laborer deserves to be paid." (Luke 10:7 NRSV) And St. Paul reiterates that same sentiment in I Timothy 5:18.  

A secondary paradigm shift is that for several years, clergy have been less mobile.  I only know this anecdotally, but I have heard more than one transition officer lament the fact that there are far more available positions (albeit often part time) than there available clergy.  This is part of a reality of having smaller seminary classes (therefore fewer clergy), spouses with careers, children in schools and established social networks.  

If you look at these factors together, you have a situation where churches are unable to pay what is a reasonable compensation, and fewer clergy are available.  This means that having a regular celebration of the Eucharist is becoming more and more challenging, particularly for smaller and less resourced congregations.

So, what are the options?  Churches are already facing the reality that having a priest available to celebrate a regular Sunday communion is not always realistic.  I get a sense many believe this is a temporary situation, until they can come up with a solution.  I would guess that this is likely permanent and congregations and dioceses need to adapt.  Bearing in mind our denominational canons, culture and theology, we are faced with a pretty limited number of options.

I will explore some of these options in depth in later posts, but for this post I will lay out a non-exhaustive list of possibilities.  The first option is to have congregations share clergy.  A second option is to having locally trained and ordained clergy, who are bivocational (a job in the church and out of the church) or newly retired.  A third option is to have a deacon present who can do a distribution of pre-sanctified communion (previously consecrated by a priest).  The fourth option is having lay leadership who can lead non-eucharistic worship.  All of these options have positives and negatives, and all of them have models that work better than others.

Looking at the options, Morning Prayer may need to become a principal service by default.  Other options may simply not be available to many congregations.  However, I would like to propose that this is not necessarily a bad thing.  In fact, I believe it could be an opportunity for the Church, as a whole, to rethink what we do as our principal services.  Even in churches where a full time priest is present, Morning Prayer as a regular service (bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly) may have benefits as well.

Benefits of Morning Prayer

Equity in worship 

My first reason for suggesting a regular service of Morning Prayer has to do with the notion of "Common Prayer" which is a central part of our Anglican identity.  This may seem like a strange reason, but it is based on the reality of congregations where Morning Prayer is likely to become normative.  One of the basic understandings of Anglicanism is that our worship brings us a common identity.  However, if our style of worship represents a tiered system of haves and have-nots (priest or no priest), we create a system of class division among our congregations.  If we can shift our culture to understand Morning Prayer as a full expression of worship and not just "that service without communion", then we create a parity in our liturgical expression.  When the parish church of 1,000 worshippers and multiple clergy is worshipping in the same liturgy as the mission church of 10 and lay leaders, we preserve our notion of Common Prayer.

May raise the importance of the Eucharist

When I was in seminary, my field ed parish was one of the few large churches that kept Morning Prayer as a Sunday service every other week.  I went to this parish because of my Anglo-Catholic leanings, and I thought it would stretch me a bit.  I once asked a parishioner what she thought of not having the eucharist weekly.  She told me it made communion a more special event for her and she was better able to spiritually prepare for it.  One downside of a weekly celebration of the eucharist is that it becomes rote and we sometimes lose the sense of gravitas of what we are doing.  A less frequent celebration of the eucharist may actually do what the current Prayer Book proposes: to promote the importance of this sacrament.

Richness of the Liturgy

One of the great surprises I have had visiting England is how many people wait in line (or is it a queue?) for Evensong, the evening sister liturgy to Morning Prayer.  Part of this is that it is the only time tourists can visit some prominent churches without paying an entrance fee; however some of it is that there is great beauty to this liturgy.  The Offices (Morning and Evening Prayer) have five hundred years of canticle settings and anthems composed for these services.  It is like getting a free concert that exposes the visitor to the Christian faith. These are liturgies that can be enriched with incense and chanting and like all of our liturgies can give a sense of the sublime.  They are accessible for outsiders, who are less comfortable participating.  In an age when baptism not assumed, there is no insider or outsider at communion time.  Having Morning Prayer alleviates the question of communion without baptism.  The full liturgy is available for all worshippers without compromising our sacramental theology.  

Teaches devotion

Outside of being services for Sunday mornings, the Daily Office is a personal devotional.  However, I have found that many Episcopalians are only vaguely familiar with them, if at all.  Many clergy do not pray the Daily Offices.  This is a liturgy that is accessible to all Christians.  When worshippers are exposed to this liturgy on a regular basis, and the pattern becomes written on their hearts, and they can become comfortable with worshipping with this liturgy on their own.  This opens so many other spiritual doors.  Having this liturgy as a devotional gives people words to pray when they are at a loss and it exposes people to regular readings of scripture.

Promotes lay ministry

The catechism defines the ministers of the Church as all baptized Christians.  However, the reality is that the Church is still living in a paradigm of a professional ministry by paid clergy.  Elevating Morning Prayer actually fulfills the Prayer Book understanding of the laity as a full order of ministry.  Anyone can pick up a Book of Common Prayer and be the officiant of that service.  People in the lay order can preach or do any role (except the absolution) in this liturgy.  Worshipping with a lay-led Morning Prayer is sacramental.  It is an outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace, that all Christians are empowered by their baptism.  

So, should we throw it all away?

Whenever I talk about the possibility of shifting paradigms, I am not suggesting we should get rid of our last seventy years of liturgical theology.  As there have always been, there will always be Anglo-Catholic parishes who have a regular - sometimes daily - celebration of the Eucharist.  I believe that we Episcopalians have a rich understanding of the eucharist that should not be downplayed or diminished.  I believe that bishops, priests and deacons always must have a role in the Church as laid out in our ordination vows.  Nor am I suggesting a defeatists notion, by acknowledging that the church is in transition.  

The advantage of rethinking this old model is that we already have centuries of tradition to lean on.  We have already expanded the Church with this model, and it helps us more fully live out our current baptismal theology.  Promoting Morning Prayer as a full expression of worship and a principal Sunday service may not be a universal fix; however it can alleviate many of our current challenges help the Church recover a robust liturgical expression already in our DNA.

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