Our Common Prayer: A Field Guide to the Book of Common Prayer

by Winfield Bevins, Ashley Null (Foreword)

Our Common Prayer offers a refreshing alternative to our postmodern world by helping us reconnect to the historic prayers of the Christian faith. Your faith will be refreshed and renewed through this wonderful field guide to the historic Book of Common Prayer. The historic common prayer tradition has enriched the faith of millions of Christians around the world for hundreds of years and still has the power to offer a vibrant, healthy, life-giving faith for our generation and generations to come. Our Common Prayer follows a simple outline and rhythm from the Book of Common Prayer and is edited for contemporary use. Our Common Prayer can be used in a variety of for individual private devotion, for small groups, for youth ministry, or even for church gatherings. 

Genres: Prayer, Devotional, Nonfiction

125 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Dr. Winfield Bevins is an internationally recognized author, artist, and the founding director of Creo Arts, which is a non-profit that exists to bring beauty, goodness, and truth to the world through the arts. Winfield is also artist-in-residence at Asbury Theological Seminary where he champions the integration of art, theology, and mission. Over the past decade, he has helped start numerous initiatives and academic programs that have trained leaders from around the world. He frequently speaks at conferences, seminaries, and universities on a variety of topics and is an affiliate professor at several academic institutions.

He is the author of several books, including Liturgical Mission: The Work of the People for the Sake of the World, which was nominated for a Reader’s Choice Award (InterVarsity Press, 2022); Ever Ancient Ever New: The Allure of Liturgy for a New Generation (Zondervan, 2019); and Marks of a Movement (2019), which has been translated into Korean and Spanish. Winfield’s work has been featured in various outlets such as Christianity Today, Publishers Weekly, Outreach Magazine, and Religious News Service.

As an artist, he describes his artwork as “modern inconography” because it explores the intersection where the past and the present meet through sacred art. He believes that we need new forms and expressions of ancient truths to speak to a new generation, that are connected to those who have gone before us, drawing fresh inspiration from the past for our faith for today through art. As an artist, he hopes that his art will invite viewers to slow down and pray to God who is “ever ancient, ever new.” He and his wife have three daughters and live in Kentucky where he has a working studio and runs the Creo Arts Gallery.

Reviews

[Kevin F · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have to agree with the other reviewers and say I was pretty disappointed with this book. It appeared to be a sort of guide on how to use the BCP in your own devotions, but instead it is basically an abridged BCP with some lengthy introductions to each chapter. For what it's worth, the introductions were quite interesting, but I would have preferred to have turned these into a full book on their own without reprinting large sections of the BCP.

[Jonah Sinclair · Rating 2 out of 5]

While it was nice to be able to collect a number of pieces for my own prayer life, this book makes two mistakes: it doesn’t teach you how to use the Book of Common Prayer but essentially continues to tell you what it is/was, and it tries to modernize the concept of common prayer a point too far.
Case in point - I don’t think Thomas Cranmer had a specific prayer for the American President seeing as he lived and wrote some two hundred years before the United States of America were even established.

[Kristi · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very good distillation of the Book of Common Prayer with selections to last one the entire church year for personal devotion and prayer. Bevins offers comments about sections he highlights in the book, albeit brief. I wish the book had more breadth in the commentary.

[Claude · Rating 3 out of 5]

Intended and best for those new to BCP. Intro sections and commentary are a little thin and leave something to be desired.

[Vinnie Santini · Rating 3 out of 5]

For beginners who have never used the BCP. Very limited information about the BCP.

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read on KU.

Very helpful.

[Evan Hays · Rating 3 out of 5]

I should have just read Alan Jacobs' Biography of the Book of Common Prayer, but I don't own a copy of that, and I was given this one as a present. I still love Bevins and his work, and I would love to meet him in person someday. But this book is really for a neophyte to liturgical prayer, and after over a dozen years now in Anglican churches, I'm not in that category anymore. Really, I would have loved it if someone gave me this book in 2005. I just went to the bookstore at Wheaton College, bought myself a Book of Common Prayer, and did my best to figure it out. I don't know about you, but I found that difficult on its own. Reading this as a companion text would have been nice.

He still has good things to say in the introductory sections, but those are too short. I do look forward to loaning this book out or giving it away, because it would be right up there as a great book to recommend to someone new to a liturgical tradition or Anglicanism.

[Adam Shields · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short Review: This is an okay introduction to the structure and form of the Episcopal services and the book of common prayer. But I was really looking for how to actually use the book (flipping pages and using it as a devotional) and this wasn't that book. Eventually I found a kindle version of the book of common prayer that had everything written out as a daily devotional so there is no flipping and trying to figure out what you are supposed to be doing.

As an introduction, this isn't bad, but it is in that difficult place of being too basic for anyone that has much background but not specific enough for people that have no background.


My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/common-prayer-2/

[Richard Fitzgerald · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book might be a gentle introduction to the Book of Common Prayer. But, it is not a guide for using the Book of Common Prayer in spite of what its title implies. It is a simple prayer book for a contemporary audience that has never used a liturgical form of prayer. There is some nice background information that should make the idea of praying from a prayer book seem less odd to our modern worldviews. But, it will not help you navigate the actual Book of Common Prayer.

[Lon R Boyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very readable and usefully guide

As one who comes from a non liturgical background I find this book to be very helpful in shaping my prayer life. The history of the Book of Common Prayer is also very interesting.

[Jeanne Higgins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Primer on what is in the Book of Common Prayer and how to use it.