Well the best way to get around this is to project everything onto a screen.

Double dog dare you to do that ...

Kit,

Ah, but if we had to do the screen-thing, we'd have to buy the screen, buy an LCD projector, buy the RiteStuff program (that is crazy-expensive) and then copy and paste it all in...

Also, the nice thing about using the actual BCP is that this text has been one of the true "instruments of unity" in our Anglican Family for nearly 500 years (also, if you get bored during the sermons, you can read the catechism and the historical documents in the back...

I'll think about the screen-thing, however ... let me know how it goes for you and I'll follow suit!

;)

Peter+

The screen idea is a good one, as I have seen it in a couple of churches (Holy Apostles' in Seattle, WA and St. Thomas in Hacienda Heights). They are very effective.

With that said, the church building (some people might call it a sanctuary) itself must be conducive for this. After all, you face several questions-

1. Where would we project the liturgy and stuff? Can the people at the back of the church be able to see the texts clearly?

2. Will everyone at church be on board with this plan? Sometimes a screen will alter the look of the church. For some high church fans, they might not like it.

This is my opinion on how we should save paper.

1. Since there are only year A, B, and C on the liturgical calendar (I think that's how you called it), print the weekly prayer, lessons, psalms, and gospels on a book on a size 14 or 16 font (for the older generation to read it). This would save paper and people won't throw it away because it's church property.

2. For seasonal stuff (common prayer, communion related procedures), just print them as booklets and collect them every Sunday. Each booklet will represent a different liturgical season.

3. For bulletins, we should slowly educate the older generation to check the church-related news on the church's website, email, and/or Facebook group for the church (the "in" thing nowadays).

4. For hymns, we should use traditional hymn boards or have the LEM announce it before the organist play each hymn.

5. Monthly newsletters (quite a bit of churches might use them now)... put them up on the church's website as PDF files. If people want to print it out, that's their choice.

Sure, it would cost the church quite a bit of money... printing things like #1 and #2. But, in the long run, the savings will show over time. But, if the church is on the verge of folding, #1 and #2 are not the best ideas.

- Bill Wong

Save paper, yes, but please, no screens. One sheet sounds good to me.

June Butler

For St. Thomas in Hacienda Heights, they didn't have screen. Rather, they used one of the walls at the church to project the content needed for the service.

So, not all churches used projectors used screens.

- Bill Wong

A combined BCP and Hymnal would simplify things though it's a little unwieldy as long as we keep dragging ER I's language along.

The BCP belongs to all of us, clergy and laity alike. In addition to not being very green, all this extra printing is a means the clergy use to foist their pet liturgical variations on the laity and keeps the laity from knowing the riches of their Prayer Book that are only discovered through use.

Peter, I agree wholeheartedly with your text!

I was raised in Brazil, and to me it never bothered that there we simply used the Prayer Book (usually the priest or a lay person would, before the service, announce the rite and page and what book to use; also, hymn numbers are always on the wall anyway).

When I did an internship at a poor parish in Rio, where most of the people had little education and found the multiple options of the prayer book a bit confusing, we created seasonal service leaflets, which could be reused one year later. The readings and psalm also came on a separate sheet of paper (to be reused 3 years later too!). Seasonal leaflets are practical (they can have the plain liturgy, without any of the optional clauses), eco-friendly (can be reused just like the prayer book) and allow the liturgy team to use the Prayer Book in its fullness, rotating eucharistic prayers, prayers of the people and other parts of the liturgy according to the season.

Projectors are wonderful... for lectures and movies. Some people use them for services though.

In the earliest days of St. Gregory's, San Francisco (through the early 1980's) we printed a weekly booklet with all the music people would sing (and nothing but the music). Our logic for nothing but music was that we wanted to give people full music and text for a substantially sung congregational liturgy, and...further logic of nothing but the music is that we wanted people to be able to see one another's faces when we were praying and to listen to scripture and the reader with their whole self.

Cranmer and the Anglican Reformers did a brilliant thing in 1549 when the printing press was suddenly making written text available to common people - when the Anglican reformers gave the entire written text to the people and encouraged and enabled them to read along it was giving dignity and authority to ordinary (newly literate) lay people.

In 1980 (and more so in 2008) telling people to read the text word for word in the Prayer Book isn't the church offering a message about lay people's dignity and authority, it's putting them back to being school kids.

1549 also marked the return of vernacular liturgy in England. Books were revelatory for people who had only heard the liturgy in Latin. But ancient Eastern Christian traditions of vernacular liturgy have functioned without books for centuries.

In Addis Ababa the huge Epiphany celebration in Ethiopia brings out 150,000 people for an outdoor liturgy that's thirty-six hours long. The singing is continuous and there's not a book in sight.

That ancient tradition of singing from memory and learning by imitation directly to memory is part of the inspiration of our new publication 'Music by Heart' (Church Publishing) http://www.allsaintscompany.org/events/view/music_by_heart/
Iona and Taize have engaged the same project. It doesn't just save paper offer the congregation music that touches them and which people learn by ear and from watching one another. It changes the congregational dynamic.

Ancient Christian (pre-print) means of making liturgy carried words to heart and mind by ear and feeling by ear and eye (reading and feeling faces and gesture). New research on the human brain suggests that the primordial neuron paths touch our experience more deeply than interposing a layer of code (interpreting alphabet to words and sentences in order to take in meaning).

Doing liturgy well without books in people's hands does demand that readers, intercessors, deacons, and presiders pray with a conviction and power that engages people and feels recognizably like the people's voice.

What about projection on a wall (or screen)? I've observed that it creates a focus, center of authority, and source of meaning wholly outside the interaction among the people praying. In my admittedly limited experience of people singing from screen, it atomizes the congregation (disconnects people from those nearby) and makes the congregation passive. The singing I've heard and tried participate in that's cued from a screen feels like a sing along.

Paper and green concerns may be pushing us, finally, to ask the right questions of the whys and hows of our liturgy for Christian formation, people learning and working together in their praying, and finding, as we pray together authority for living into mission in our daily lives.

Some interesting responses, I especially am interested in Donald's experiences at St. Gregory of Nyssa - they may be really onto something that works well in their context, but might be considered and adapted for other places.

I continue to be amazed by the willingness of people to reproduce what is ALREADY PRINTED and in most pews! The amount of time and effort (not to mention wood-pulp and attending energy usage) seems quite crazy.

...some great ideas here!..

Who disagrees? Why do we keep reproducing our liturgical materials? Where is the push-back?

Maybe someone should craft a General Convention Resolution about limiting paper usage !

At my first cure, one elderly Welsh-American layreader had memorized all the Epistles. He didn't read them. He stood at the side of the lectern and declaimed them.

Most of us who started out with the '28 BCP after a while knew most of our part by heart. We might have to open it for the Psalms, but that was about it. We could sing Merbeck and Willan from memory and that sufficed.

The '79 BCP exchanged simplicity for variety: 2 rites, at least 6 prayers of consecration, 3 cycles of readings, an infinite choice of canticles at the offices, etc. And all those settings. Wow. It's no wonder we yearn for simplicity. It may take a forest but with computer and copier all those multi-page leaflets are quite easy to produce and follow. Variety is again reduced to simplicity, and our inner '28 BCP is comforted.

Just a reminder folks, you need to sign your comments with your full name.

Here's a draft. I am not the best at this... so someone could correct my wording here and bring it up to the Convention.

As it's known that the Episcopal Church are trying to fulfill its MDG's, one of the ways we could accomplish it is by reducing the use of paper on the Sunday bulletins in our churches.

So, we here have some following propositions:

Encourage churches to find ways to conserve paper. One of the ways we could do so is by allowing churches to apply for grants in their measures to conserve paper. Eligible items include:

- printings of liturgical season booklets
- projectors and/or screens (this would have to be approved by the Episcopal Church office)
- an energy saving copier (since copying takes power, too)

While we are at this process, we also should provide avenues for churches to bulletins they collected after each Sunday service and recycle them.

(This is not the best... but that's what I got.)

- Bill Wong

At the church that I attended this Sunday they used a printed order of service for baptism which they collected afterward to be used at the next baptism.

It's good that they collect them for reuse. (I was impressed, because I've been to baptisms where printed booklets were used and couldn't be reused because they contained the names of the candidates, the day's announcements yada yada.) But it raises the question, why use them at all if every word is in the Prayer Book? It does save the parents and sponsors fumbling with a book, but I didn't see the point for the rest of us. Oh well, given that they're been reused the waste is minor.

The same church puts its monthly newsletter on the web, but offers you a printed copy upon request. Sounds like good stewardship to me.

In some places, projection can be a great, green option, especially if it is a modern-styled building. In others, while being functional, projection simply looks tacky. On the other extreme, save for special occasions (i.e. Christmas, Easter, ordinations), there is absolutely no reason to print the entire service in a 20-page book. It can be nice as a souvenir, but the last time I checked, I came to church to worship, not collect swag.

My parish uses the seasonal booklets, but only because our practice of anglo-catholic liturgy varies substantially from the prayer book, even from the closest form in Rite 1. Visitors comment that they find them extremely helpful to follow, with less flipping around, although everyone still juggles the booklet, hymnal, and a one-page, tri-fold bulletin.

From my own experience, I echo Donald's remarks about learning to worship by imitation - prayers, music, responses and all. Once the rhythms of worship became ingrained, I dispensed with printed material altogether. I know the Creed because I sing it, know the responses because I use them week after week. By now, a spectrum of liturgies are in my bones.

I'm serving a federated ELCA-TEC congregation, so we have services from both traditions each week. We use laminated sheets (affectionately referred to as "menus") for the text part of the services. We have 5 or 6 BCP-based sheets (Prayer A, Prayer B, then special sheets for Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter seasons). The Lutheran ones are based on a similar variety in the LBW (Lutheran Book of Worship).

We use different sizes and colors of paper to keep them all straight, and rotate them through the liturgical year as necessary. The lamination keeps the sheets neat, and it is very unlikely anyone will fold one up and stick it in a pocket. Laminators are cheap, and once the initial work is done, there is no more labor, no more paper.

Hymn texts are projected in Power Point on the wall. A big advantage to projecting hymns is that you don't need to keep 4 sets of hymnals for each person. We can draw from an enormous number of resources, introduce new songs, and even amend the text if advisable. And, yes, we strive to comply with all the licensing requirements.

I would love to display the melody line to songs as well, but so far I am not aware of any program that makes it easy to do this. The tif/gif/jpg files that come with Rite Song and the Lutheran equivalent are geared for print copies, not projection, so the size and quality are no good without a LOT of tedious fiddling, which I don't have time or patience for. I wish someone would publish Power Point versions of the hymns!

The lessons are projected on the screen, and we also print some copies for folks that like to take them home or prefer something in their hand. We don't make enough for everyone, though, because most people are content with looking at the screen.

Using this system, we have cut down on paper use dramatically, and folks do not have anything juggle.

Even if you don't want to use projection, the laminated sheets still work well. During the service, you have to deal with only 3 things: one laminated sheet, one sheet with readings, and a hymnal.

FWIW-
Becky Robbins-Penniman
Lamb of God Church
Fort Myers, FL

Becky, what your church is doing is amazing.

From my visit to Holy Apostle's in Seattle. They are doing the same thing as you are doing. But, they do have hymnals just in case of people who want to follow along as well. After all, that will enable people who like to follow along in the music or sing in parts (the old SATB) if they want to.

Of course, choir directors would play a big role in terms of the hymnal. If I were a choir director, I would be mostly using one hymnal. However, I would put some other hymns (as well as some contemporary christian stuff) I like into a folder and reproduce them for the congregation in case they need it. For contemporary christian stuff, though, I would only use them as a way to change of pace. (I personally love contemporary christian music more than traditional hymns. But, I know introducing them to the rest of the congregation can be a difficult task.)

- Bill Wong

We do have LBWs and H'82s in the book racks in the chairs (no pews at Lamb of God!). For a long time we put the hymn number on the power point screen so those who wanted to could use them if they wanted to. However, no one ever did, so that fell be the wayside. Now that the new ELW (Evangelical Lutheran Worship) is out, we are using the updated words from that. We didn't buy hundreds of copies, though, to put in the chairs. That makes it even harder for folks who want the music.

Like I said, I wish someone would put together a song resource with music - including SATB lines even - suitable for projection.

Greetings
I tend most to identify with Donald's response.
Are people confusing being welcoming with being able to be totally involved? Surely we expect a certain amount of growing into the Christian life and tradition - is it too much to expect a regular to be alongside a newcomer to help them? And afterwards to answer any questions - commencing a companioned catechumenal process?

Why do people want to read along with the reader? With the prayer? Are people with reading and prayer-leading ministries not sufficiently competent to proclaim the reading, the prayer? I guess people with these habits are taking the screenplay to their movies, and the play's texts to shows & must find public speeches very irritating when they are not simultaneously on a screen...

As to screens - my experience is that we quickly end up with communities addressing the screen "...and also with you..." etc.

Blessings

Bosco Peters+
http://www.liturgy.co.nz