Prayer book conference encourages deeper connections

The Episcopal way of worship has a framework and structure that can help all kinds of people make a deeper connection to God, scholar and author Derek Olsen says. But in order to invite people to experience that, he says, we have to understand it ourselves – and our Book of Common Prayer gives us a way to do that.

More than 70 people from around eastern South Carolina spent a Saturday with Dr. Olsen in Florence on February 2, bringing their prayer books, questions and experiences to a one-day conference called “The Book of Common Prayer: A Pathway to Spirituality.”

Co-sponsored by the Episcopal Forum of South Carolina and St. Catherine’s Episcopal Church in Florence, the conference drew people from all parts of the diocese, both Episcopalians and inquirers from other denominations.

Dr. Olsen is the author of Inwardly Digest: The Prayer Book as a Guide to a Spiritual Life, published by Forward Movement. It’s a book that many have called essential reading for Episcopalians.

How Episcopalians do liturgy is important, and it shapes how we do Christianity, Dr. Olsen told the group who gathered in St. Luke Lutheran Church for the conference. Using the prayer book for daily prayer – especially for daily Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer – helps to develop a pattern that shapes us and draws us into the mind of Christ.

“It becomes our habit, a continual practice of reorienting ourselves, turning ourselves toward God,” he said.

Prayer book spirituality can be especially attractive and useful for a younger generation who yearn for a way to be spiritual, but suffer from the “tyranny of choice,” with so many options that they don’t know where to begin. The prayer book offers an authentic pattern, and some structure.

Noting that the Book of Psalms is the only book of the Bible completely reproduced in the BCP, Dr. Olsen  said the emphasis on Psalms in daily prayer responds to St. Paul’s direction to the Ephesians to be “filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:19-20).

Second, we’re reminded in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 to “pray without ceasing.” For individual humans, who eat and sleep, that’s not possible, Dr. Olsen said. “The only way to pray without ceasing is to pray in community,” he said. When we pray aloud from the prayer book, we are joining our voices with Episcopalians and Anglicans who are praying with us at every hour, all the way around the world.

After lunch and a Q&A session, Dr. Olsen and the Rev. Jeff Richardson, Vicar of St. Catherine’s, led an Instructed Eucharist, celebrated by Fr. Richardson and interspersed with explanations from Dr. Olsen about what happens in at each point in the liturgy.

“The Eucharist connects us to everything,” Dr. Olsen said.

In his sermon, Fr. Richardson said he chose the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple (February 2) for the text because of how well it relates to the theme of the conference.

The presentation in the temple was the meeting of old and new, Fr. Richardson said: Old Simeon and young Jesus, the old sacrifice with the new offering of Christ. It also shows Mary and Joseph, young parents, rooting themselves in worship and community. “We are blessed in regular worship,” he said. Watch a video of his sermon here.

The Episcopal Forum of South Carolina is a 501c3 nonprofit that sponsors forums and conferences on topic such as spirituality and social justice in the tradition of The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. Learn more about it at episcopalforum.com.