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Liturgy, Pentecost, Wesley and the Book of Common Prayer, Part III: Evening Prayer from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer
This is the last in a series of three lectures on the subject. It was delivered on 22 March 2023 at the North Cleveland Church of God by Don C. Warrington, Ph.D.. It was basically a “walk through” of Evening Prayer from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, including some commentary and directions. The video for it is below.
The slides for this lecture can be found here.
Since this was the Wednesday after the Fourth Sunday in Lent, a church bulletin from that era is here: Anglican Tidbit: Bulletin for the Fourth Sunday in Lent.
The previous two lectures are as follows:
- Liturgy, Pentecost, Wesley and the Book of Common Prayer, Part I: What is a Liturgy?
- Liturgy, Pentecost, Wesley and the Book of Common Prayer, Part II: The Book of Common Prayer, Wesley, the 1789 and 1928 BCPʼs
We trust that this will be a blessing to you.
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Justin Welby can’t read the room
Who’d be Archbishop of Canterbury? Not me. You have surprisingly little executive power and get blamed for pretty much everything: from earthquakes (…
Justin Welby can’t read the room -
Liturgy, Pentecost, Wesley and the Book of Common Prayer, Part II: The Book of Common Prayer, Wesley, the 1789 and 1928 BCPʼs
The second in a series, delivered 15 March 2023 at the North Cleveland Church of God in Cleveland, TN, delivered by Don C. Warrington, Ph.D. Following a brief outline of the early history of the Book of Common Prayer, a history of two prayer books in the early United States is given: John Wesley’s prayer book for his new Methodist bishops, and the 1789 Book put together by the new Protestant Episcopal Church.
In the end a proposal is given for Pentecostal use: the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, the last “Cranmerian” prayer book and the direct ancestor of the 1789, with strong affinities to Wesley’s. This makes it suitable from a doctrinal standpoint for a Wesleyan-Holiness movement such as modern Pentecost.
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Liturgy, Pentecost, Wesley and the Book of Common Prayer, Part I: What is a Liturgy?
First in a series of classes on the topic of liturgical worship (corporate) or individual prayer in a Pentecostal context, which in turn comes out of a Wesleyan-Holiness background. This is the first part, discussing the question “What is a Liturgy.” Some of the history of liturgical worship is discussed, along with the basic structure of liturgy itself, the liturgical calendar and various types of liturgy.
This talk was originally given 8 March 2023 at the North Cleveland Church of God in Cleveland, Tennessee by Dr. Don C. Warrington. The lecture itself runs a little under an hour followed by an extensive question and answer series, some of which were asked by the Most Rev. Dr. Mark L. Williams, Pastor, and the Rev. Sandra Kay Williams.
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Liturgy, Pentecost, Wesley and the Book of Common Prayer
It’s almost hard for me to believe, but this Wednesday night I’m starting a brief (three week) series on this topic at my church, the North Cleveland Church of God. Here is the announcement on Sunday, live by our own Coleman Smart:
My plan, Lord willing, is to put this on my YouTube channel a day or two after each presentation. If you don’t follow me on Twitter, you can keep up with it on my YouTube channel, or by subscribing to this blog.
See you then!
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Oskar Jeske: German Pentecostal Pioneer in Poland and Survivor of Soviet Prison Camps — Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center
PHOTO: Oskar Jeske (center) with wife, Anna, and Polish workers. This Week in AG History — February 24, 1974 By Ruthie Edgerly ObergOriginally published on AG News, 23 February 2023 Oskar Jeske (1902-1989) was a Pentecostal minister born in Poland to German parents. His life intersected with much of the tumultuous history of Eastern Europe […]
Oskar Jeske: German Pentecostal Pioneer in Poland and Survivor of Soviet Prison Camps — Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center -
The Jesus Revolution: The Era No One Wants to Remember Has a Movie
Today we see released the movie Jesus Revolution. In one sense it’s about time; so many of us were impacted by it, you’d think it would be more celebrated than it is. And yet, having spent time bringing back the era on this blog and in more recent years on my YouTube channel, I get the feeling that there are many people who would just as soon forget it happened at all.
First: I was there. It wasn’t California (it was Texas,) and it wasn’t Calvary Chapel (it was our Roman Catholic group) but I was a participant. That included the coffeehouse ministry, which ended up being life changing. I’ve concentrated my emphasis on two aspects. The first one is the “Jesus Music Era,” in conjunction with people who are now gone, and which has been so diligently catalogued by Ken Scott. The second has been the Charismatic Renewal, which certainly wasn’t identical to what Chuck Smith was doing (there are significant differences) but which also changed people in a era of upheaval. There will be people who gain eternal life because of what happened, and that can’t be gainsaid.
Although I’ve received many thanks from grateful people for posting the music, then and now there were people who were working against what was happening and who ultimately subverted the result. They include:
- Bill Gothard, probably the single most influential Christian teacher of the 1970’s (with the possible exception of J. Vernon McGee.) Many who had to pastor the hippies and other who came into churches knew they needed a good deal of guidance and leadership, but Gothard’s rigid authoritarian model, combined with the bourgeois respectability he wrapped it in, impacted a generation in a way it really didn’t need. Although the left these days is obsessed with authoritarianism, in some ways Gothard stunted Christian politics with it. Rigid authoritarianism isn’t something that has always had an appeal to Americans; Christian political figures steeped in it never quite made it, leading to the rise of Donald Trump from outside.
- Classical Pentecostals: although this varied from denomination to denomination, many of these didn’t like the “Jesus Movement.” Those who came out of it weren’t for the most part in the culture that birthed modern Pentecost in the U.S., and they didn’t appreciate the legalism that went with it. I discussed this relative to Paul Laverne and Mark Walker (the latter Lee University’s president.)
- Other traditionalists: these hated the liturgical and worship changes that the “Jesus Music” era brought to the church. Their response was muted at the time but have come back with a vengeance afterwards. On the Catholic side this includes “Trads” and #straightouttairondale types, with many who were in the Charismatic renewal switching sides with the tide. On the Protestant side we have the “worship wars” which have divided churches.
- Those on the left who didn’t like the conservative theological ways of the “Jesus Movement.” Their lament has continued until this day.
The obvious question remains: why did the movement end? I hate to call it a revival, because the Jesus Movement, like some of the things going on today, didn’t fit the pattern set by the likes of Finney, Moody, Sunday or even Billy Graham (who benefited from it.) One thing I can speak to with some authority is why the “Jesus Music” era died around the end of the 1970’s, which perhaps is a good way of looking at the whole movement.
The “Jesus Music” era was one of the most creative eras of Christian music that we have. Sure there were duds and there were those who just replicated what they had done before, but the whole movement brought into–and in some cases to the fore–songs and styles that hadn’t been there before, and appealed to a new generation of people.
But towards the end of the 1970’s something happened: the Christian music scene turned from a ministry into a business. Many creative (and non-traditional) ways were pushed aside by record labels which were interested in appealing to as broad of an audience as possible. At the same time many of the people changed by the Jesus Movement were being absorbed into “conventional church” of one kind or another; the people least prepared for the movement became its greatest (if not grateful) beneficiaries. Today our worship is lead by a business model, where new hits end up befuddling congregations just as they were learning (or not) the last set of new songs.
And for me? Well, I’ve had second thoughts about how I felt then and now, but there’s no doubt it brought me into a better walk with God. And that’s the ultimate object of Christianity, in this life and the life to come.