Most simply, the Book of Common Prayer, is a book of scripture readings, prayers, and related readings that can be used for daily reading, worship and even daily communion with a congregation. Most people in an Evangelical Free Church or people from Baptist backgrounds would read a portion of the Book of Common Prayer and would guess that it is connected to Roman Catholicism. This is not the case however. It has additional readings for Sunday worship services and special readings, prayers, and blessings for special services like weddings, funerals, baptisms, etc. It actually came from the church of England (the Anglican church) almost five hundred years ago. It has been edited, changed, adapted, and adopted by the Anglican churches globally as well as many other Christian groups that are off-shoots of the Anglicanism branch of Christianity. (The Episcopal church in America became the early extension of the Anglican church here in the United States once America’s Revolutionary war separated America from England.)

Of course the five-hundred year history of “the Book of Common Prayer” has much rich detail that a quick summary can’t do justice to. Its origin is found in the split of the Church of England (Anglican Church) from the Church of Rome (Roman Catholic Church). It took the various daily prayers and scripture readings in several Roman Catholic books and added the various special worship service details that would happen through the year, and importantly, presented all these together in English (rather than Latin) for use by Christians in the Anglican churches. Today, these many different editions of this “book” can be easily found for purchase by anyone.