Worship for All Seasons 2: Selections from Gathering, Year C.

A.J. Pell is editor of the Canadian Evangelical Review and an instructor
of Liturgy, Anglican Studies Program, Regent College, Vancouver.

In an era when most Christian worshippers are quickly bored by “the same old thing week after week,” many congregations are hard-pressed to find resources that will provide variety. The very large congregations have enough staff to allow one person’s time to be devoted to finding this variety. But smaller one-clergy congregations and very small rural churches with lay-led worship face difficulties in bringing freshness and variety to Sunday worship. These smaller churches will find Worship for All Seasons II a godsend. The Hardings, United Church of Canada musicians and liturgists, have brought together material from Gatherings publications over the years to create this compilation.

Following up on previous Worship for All Seasons resource books for lectionary Years A and B, this volume is devoted to Year C. There are six sections for the liturgical seasons from Advent to the Festival of Pentecost; the last two sections are for summer and autumn. Each season is broken down Sunday by Sunday, and provision is made for insertions of such special celebrations as Thanksgiving and Remembrance Day. Among the resources provided are prayers, dramas, congregational music, and “sermon starters.”

For harried clergy and lay pastors in small churches, the book could be far more user-friendly if, in the table of contents, the divisions of each seasonal section were listed — “Sunday by Sunday,” “Hymn Texts,” “Prayers for Services,” etc. The CD-ROM packed into the books provides an easy-to-navigate menu that does break down the seasonal sections into subsections. Whether using the book or the CD-ROM, there is enough material here for several cycles of Year C, making this a resource worth purchasing.