The Southern Episcopal Church uses the historic 1928 Book of Common Prayer (BCP), as the standard for worship. In some parish churches, the BCP is supplemented at times with the People’s Anglican Missal. This represents one of the finest collections of Christian wisdom and devotion; more than seventy five percent of it is taken directly from Holy Scriptures. Christians from the earliest times have used fairly set forms of worship. These traditional services were translated from the Latin by Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, and set forth in 1549 as the first Book of Common Prayerin the venacular of the people.

Since then, to meet the needs of a new day, the Book of Common Prayer has been revised a number of times, the 1928 being the norm. But throughout it has remained essentially unchanged. Many of its prayers have been prayed by Christians for more than 1400 years. You might wonder why we use set forms of worship. It is because it trains us in our praying – to adore God to thank Him and to confess our sins to Him, as well. as petition Him and make intercession to Him. We do not get into the rut of praying only one way – and since the law of belief is closely tied to the law of prayer, set forms of worship can help keep our beliefs orthodox.

The mainstays of Anglican worship are the Holy Eucharist and the Daily Office of Morning Prayer/Matins and Evening Prayer/Evensong. The Daily Offices, which can be traced back to the Old Testament, are services of Psalms, Scripture Lessons, hymns and prayers. The chief act of Christian worship is the Holy Eucharist, through which we keep our Lord’s command, “Do this in remembrance of me.”