New Zealand Prayer Book -Rev ed.: He Karakia Mihinare O Aotearoa

by Church Angelican

Overview

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780060601997
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	08/05/1997
Edition description:	REV
Pages:	992
Sales rank:	332,726
Product dimensions:	5.31(w) x 7.75(h) x 1.83(d)

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Introduction

A Multitude of Voices

A Prayer Book for the Church of the Province of New Zealand, including as it does Te Pihopatanga o Aotearoa, and the island nations of the South Pacific in the Diocese of Polynesia, must be a deliberate attempt to allow a multitude of voices to speak.

When the General Synod of 1964 established an initial Commission on Prayer Book Revision'...to plan and prepare a revised Book of Common Prayer, either in stages, or as a whole, in the light of the needs of the Province and of contemporary liturgical development that may have seemed a relatively straightforward task of liturgical revision. Since then successive Commission members have realised that it was indeed a major undertaking.

In the last twenty-five years the fabric of New Zealand society has changed. We live in a different, and to many, a strange world. There has been an increasing awareness of the delicate ecological balance within our country, interdependent with others. New Zealand has adopted an anti-nuclear stance. The basis of our economy has radically changed. The re-emergence of a sense of identity within the Maori people has seen the Maori language approved as an official language of the nation.

These words are still true:

"We are living in a new world: it is ours, if we are true to the faith that is in us, to seek to make it a better world. ...New knowledge and new ways of life bring with them new customs and forms of speech unknown before."

(Preface to the 1928 Book of CommonPrayer)

Within the Church there have also been profound changes since 1964. Women have been ordained as priests within this Province since 1977, and this has ensured a continuing dialogue on the equal partnership of women and men within the Church. Thus there has been an increasing need to choose language which is inclusive in nature and which affirms the place of each gender under God.

Through the decisions of General Synod the Province is committed to affirming the partnership between Maori and Pakeha, and has maintained that the life and governance of the Church stand upon our constitution, and the fundamental principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.

There have been other shifts as well. There has been an increasing recognition of the ministry of all the baptised people of God ministering in God's name. We know that we can function as more effective disciples in the world when there is no sharp division between those with different functions within the Church.

Through all these insights we have come to new understandings of who God is, and how God acts, among us in our world.

Many of these movements in Church and society are reflected within the services contained in this Prayer Book. This is now the context in which we seek to worship God.

We are fortunate that liturgical change in this country does not begin with the publication of this volume. We have experience in renewing liturgy over many years.

The first experimental New Zealand Liturgy issued in 1966, broke new ground in being one of the first Anglican eucharistic liturgies to address God as 'You'. This represented an attempt to close the gap between liturgical language and the words of everyday experience.

This was followed by the more definitive The New Zealand Liturgy 1970 which gained wide acceptance within the worshipping congregations of the Province. An edition of this in both Maori and English languages was produced in 1977. The New Zealand Liturgy remained in place until the adoption in 1984 of Liturgies of the Eucharist. This was produced as a result of widespread experimentation around the dioceses, and is the basis for the present work.

Other separate booklets of services were produced for the Church's use during the decade 1970-1980. Orders of Services, containing Morning and Evening Prayer, canticles and Psalms for Worship, Christian Initiation, and Marriage Services (containing three forms), Funeral Services, The New Zealand Calendar, and Services for use with the Sick and on other Pastoral Occasions, were all produced, some with a number of expanded editions.

This steady flow of liturgical material from the Commission means that the Anglican Church in New Zealand does not now have to undergo a radical change with the introduction of A New Zealand Prayer Book, He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa. We are not in the situation where the normative worship of the Church has been that of the Book of Common Prayer, and where the shift to an alternative prayer book involves a massive dislocation for the parish worshipper. Those dissonances have already occurred during the last twenty years.

Many parishes are already familiar with the style and content developed within the Commission's previous work, and a variety of usage now prevails around the Province.

With the exception of the Commination the services in the 1662 Book, and all alternative services approved by the Church since then, remain fully authorised for public worship by those congregations who wish to use them.

The publication of this Prayer Book, now presented for use by the Church, is the result of over twenty years experimentation, usage, evaluation and criticism by many individuals and groups. Diocesan liturgical committees and parish groups have all contributed through their insights and drafts. The fruit of their labours has been gathered together and incorporated by the Commission.

Thus this Prayer Book is a gift from the Church to itself.

Since the establishment of the Commission over fifty individuals, women and men, ordained and lay, have served on it, contributing their energy and skills. We have been continually enriched by the attendance of observers from other Churches at our meetings.

New Zealand Prayer Book -Rev ed.. Copyright © by Church Angelican. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

Introduction

One of the treasures of Anglican spirituality has been its authorised Book if Common Prayer, Helpful both for personal devotion and public liturgical wordship. The prayer book of 1662 has served Anglicans well, and for longer than its English authors might have imagined. Now, all over the Anglican world, prayer books more suitable to local and contemporary needs are finding favor.

Though new in language and content, A New Zealand Prayer Book, He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa, preserves the ethos of Anglican spirituality and incorporates the best liturgical insights modern scholarship provides. It is also more faithful to the earliest liturgical traditions of the Church and allows more flexibilty than the book of 1662.