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Prayers for an Inclusive Church |
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Steven Shakespeare 2008
Canterbury Press
ISBN 978-1-85311-915-6
Hardback, 188 pages, £16.99
This is a new book (and CD-Rom) by Steven Shakespeare which has a new collect for each Sunday for all three years of the lectionary and major festivals as well as confessions, prefaces, eucharistic prayers and post-communion prayers and blessings for the seasons. This is a beautiful collection of prayers, fresh and inspiring, springing from the Gospels and Acts readings week by week. Written from within the Anglican tradition and designed for use with Common Worship, they provide a refreshing look at the liturgical year which will be useful in a wider ecumenical context.
Their language is, as the title suggests, inclusive, and also poetic and very beautiful. For example, each collect ends with ‘through Jesus Christ,’ and then adds a brief phrase, such as ‘the open arms of grace’, ‘the gateway’, ‘the mercy of God’, ‘who gives life in abundance’. I shall use them in public worship and private devotion, and as a starting point for my own writing. The CD-Rom contains the text for all the prayers. There is a useful index of scriptural readings upon which the prayers are based, so that prayers can be found directly rather than by the Sunday of the lectionary.
Diane Coleman
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