A People of the Book
HOW THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER INVITES US INTO THE STORY OF JESUS
Todd Stockdale
Parishioner
I was raised in the evangelical tradition and for
over thirty years my Christian faith was nurtured by
churches and communities who locate themselves
broadly within this tradition. My entrance into the
Episcopal Church began over a decade ago when
living in Edinburgh, Scotland. While there, my wife
and I found a church home in a parish community
belonging to the Scottish Episcopal Church. This
church was a vibrant faith community in
the heart of Edinburgh, and at
first glance it did not appear
too dissimilar from the
evangelical
churches
and communities that
had, up to this point,
shaped
my
faith.
Their weekly worship
services were lively
and creative — typified
by contemporary praise
music and topical sermon
series. It was in the context
of this familiar setting that I
was formally introduced to Anglican
Eucharistic liturgies and to a more Anglican
way of worshiping and being. Only after moving
back to the United States did I realize just how
lasting this encounter with the “Anglican way”
would be. When trying to find a church home
following our return, we felt a bit out of place in the
evangelical churches we visited. After a few months
of searching, we stepped into an Episcopal Church
one Sunday morning, heard the now-familiar words
of the Eucharistic prayers, and things have not been
the same for us since! We were confirmed in the
Episcopal Church a few years later and to this day
our faith continues to be deepened and enriched
in ways we never would have imagined. Strangely,
when looking back on our return to the U.S., and
those months of searching and uncertainty, I can
now see that while we were looking for a style of
church that would remind us of the communities
that shaped us years ago, what we ultimately found
was comfort and peace in the liturgical prayers
shared across the Anglican Communion. Although
I had never been a part of the Episcopal Church,
I had the immediate sensation that I belonged. I
was encountering Christ in ways that were
new to me, yet these experiences
carried with them a deep sense
of familiarity. I felt I was
living the well-known John
Denver lyric: “Coming
home to a place he’d
never been before.”
One of my “moun-
tain-top” experiences
of the Book Common
Prayer came through an
encounter with the Church
of England’s prayer book. The
summer after I was confirmed in
the Episcopal Church, I made a pil-
grimage to Canterbury. Of course the entire
experience was profoundly impactful, but it was
highlighted by an intimate Eucharist celebration in
the crypt of the Cathedral. In our post communion
prayer, we offered these words to God: “We give
you thanks and praise, that when we were still far
off you met us in your Son and brought us home.”
I was moved deeply by these words, because here
I stood, as a pilgrim, contemplating the journey I
thought I had taken to be near to God, all the while
speaking the bigger story (the truer story) that it
was God who had journeyed towards me — seeking
me when I was far off and meeting me in Christ.
But the first time I ever encountered the Book
of Common Prayer was while researching with a
STJAMES.ORG · 9