Old Paths for a New Year
“What’s the plan?”
Every year I feel the question bearing down on me as the month of December comes to a close. With the conclusion of one year and the beginning of another, I often spend a good deal of time hunting—not out in the woods, sitting in a tree stand, rifle in hand, deer hunting. No, I’m assessing every innovation that has sprung up in the last year or so to improve what is often referred to these days as “The Quiet Time.”
I want to find the ultimate plan that will bring soul-satisfaction and transcendent experience into my life as I laboriously study through the Scriptures and keep pace with the people of God. I want to have the sense of achievement that I’ve accomplished a successful year and found another Bible reading plan that I can master. I am looking for peace in knowing I’ve done it right. I want the self-affirmation that I’ve read the Bible the right way and prayed the right way, so that my spiritual center will be on the right frequency to receive the right blessings of God this year. I’m trying to be a perfect Bible-reading-plan performer.
This pressure and desire to get the right Bible reading plan technology in front of me has been with me for years. It pushes its way to the forefront of mind annually with ever-increasing intensity in the two weeks leading up to the start of the New Year.
Except this year.
Even though I’ve already received four or five emails from Christian publications asking, “What’s your plan?”, I’m not stressing out about it. I’m not even paying attention to their plans. There isn’t anything wrong with those plans in and of themselves. I’m ignoring them because I’ve discovered I don’t need to reinvent the wheel every year when it comes to the spiritual habits of Bible reading and prayer. Instead, I have found an old, well-trodden path that has helped me overcome the stress of finding “the right plan” and has given me a rhythm of worship that is refreshing and nourishing to my soul.
“I’ve discovered I don’t need to reinvent the wheel every year when it comes to the spiritual habits of Bible reading and prayer.”
I recognize that what I’m about to share with you is a plan. Yes, it includes a schedule for reading through the Bible. But it’s more than just a reading plan. It’s a pattern for worship. It includes adoration, confession, thanksgiving, listening to Scripture, and offering supplication for our needs and the needs of others. In short, I want to encourage you to take up the practice of Morning and Evening Prayer from the Book of Common Prayer (BCP) that has been part of the Anglican tradition for nearly five hundred years.
Elements of Spiritual Formation
Before you click away from this article, give me a chance to make my case. If your experience of 2020 and 2021 was anything close to mine, it was a difficult two years. I’m not sure what to think about the year ahead. When the pandemic hit I found myself struggling with all sorts of difficulties in prayer and spiritual rhythms. Various trials and afflictions hit my life that left me in a shell-shocked space, grasping for words to pray and lament. I knew that praying the Psalms was the answer. But I didn’t have the resources or rhythms to know which Psalms to pray at particular times. I was Psalm-anemic. This left me in a quandary.
Furthermore, I was struggling with my “plan.” Earning a gold star from God for reading through the Bible in 2020 was likely not going to happen (it didn’t). Even knowing where to restart or jump into the Bible midway through the year was confusing. Should I start a new six-month plan and try to catch up? What if I don’t get that far with a new plan? What do I do? The answer was simple: just read the Bible. Posture my heart to listen to God every day. The question was still there though—where do I start?
Finally, I needed a rhythm that would help me focus. One of the prevailing challenges to my practices of prayer and Scripture reading is getting distracted. A text message would come along, an idea would pop into my mind, or a task I needed to do in that day would occur to me and I’d get off track, lose my focus, and feel like I had to start all over again. It was easy for me to think God was as frustrated with me as I would be with someone who had a poor cellphone signal and kept dropping calls. In this case, I knew some sort of liturgy was helpful. Liturgy was necessary to keep me on track and give movement and trajectory to my time with the Lord each day; its rhythm produced not just the power of repetition but even more so the flow of worship.
It was these three things, help in praying the Psalms, a clear plan for reading through the Scriptures, and a focused rhythm of worship that sent me searching for help. Simply put, the worship liturgies of Morning and Evening Prayer provided me with the content and the pattern to help nourish me in the gospel each and every day.
Common Prayer for Common People
Utilizing the daily offices of Morning and Evening Prayer in the BCP has relieved me in two areas. First, I don’t have to be a spiritual innovator or pioneer. Instead, I am invited into a centuries-long history of daily worship that has spanned the globe. I don’t find any fault with using the same words and prayers as other Christians across time and geography. If anything it makes the global church more unified in my mind. I’m a participant in the worship of God with the universal church.
“Today, as I hear his voice, I’m invited into communing with God, confessing my sins, hearing his Word, and invoking his power through prayer each and every day as I worship.”
Second, I am at ease now about being a regular person. I feel the relief of grace that these daily worship liturgies bring to me. It’s not a matter of checking a box or making sure I don’t get behind in the plan. There are no catch-up days. Today, as I hear his voice, I’m invited into communing with God, confessing my sins, hearing his Word, and invoking his power through prayer each and every day as I worship.
The project of a daily “quiet time” or personal devotions is instead transformed into a normal, communal, and consistent rhythm of worship that feeds my soul. I am supplied with words to pray, the Word to hear, and a way to worship the Triune God that has passed the test of time.
Some Notes on BCP Editions
For those of you, like me, who are not Anglican and are unsure of where to start, let me suggest two editions of the BCP.
The BCP owes its heritage to Thomas Cranmer of the English Reformation. It was initially published in 1549 and, like Bible translations, has been subjected to many updates and revisions over the years. The 1662 edition is generally recognized as the official version for the Church of England and included, for the first time, the Psalms translated by Miles Coverdale. You could think of this edition as the “King James Version” of the BCP.
In the last year InterVarsity Press has released an “International Edition” with some light updates in format and content. I have found this edition to be a helpful starting place for learning the liturgy of the Morning and Evening Prayers through the instructions that are given in red typeface in each section.
A more recent edition of the BCP has been produced by the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) known as the BCP 2019. This edition includes modern language and some minor changes to the formats of Morning and Evening Prayer (for instance, only praying the Lord’s Prayer once per office instead of twice as the 1662 edition suggests). This edition includes the Psalter as well, but this time the Psalms are from a revision committee that included C.S. Lewis and T.S. Eliot between 1958 and 1963 known as the New Coverdale Psalter.
Graciously the ACNA has made the text of the BCP 2019 completely free online, which can be accessed here in its totality or in sections. For the daily Old Testament and New Testament readings I use the BCP 2019’s plan. The appointed Psalms for each day are the same in both the 1662 and the 2019 editions.
If you desire to use a tablet or mobile device, I recommend the website dailyoffice2019.com. Created by Benjamin Locher, this site (or iOS app) provides a singular place to walk through the worship liturgy without having to flip through to different sections of the BCP.
Finally, if you are a commuter then consider the Daily Office Podcast by Andrew Russell. Andrew provides a “no fuss, no-frills” approach to the office by leading listeners through the prayers and readings.
Jeremy Writebol is the Executive Director of Gospel-Centered Discipleship and the Lead Campus Pastor at Woodside Bible Church in Plymouth, MI. He is the author of GCD Books publication everPresent: How the Gospel Relocates Us in the Present as well as contributing to other books. You can find him on Twitter at @jwritebol.
