Lay Designated and Licensed Ministry

Abstract This chapter traces the development of designated lay liturgical ministries in Prayer Book history. The incongruity of juxtaposing “lay” and “ministry” in a still-clerical ecclesiology is noted at the outset, after which three forms of lay liturgical ministry are examined: rubrical establishment in the 1549 Book of Common Prayer of lay clerkes, episcopal authorization of readers (Church of England) or lay readers (Episcopal Church) in the nineteenth century, and establishment of lay catechists with liturgical responsibilities in nineteenth-century mission fields. Finally, the influence of post–World War II liturgical renewal movements is shown to have led to a sea change in Prayer Book revisions in the last quarter of the twentieth century, from a clerical to a baptismal ecclesiology with canonical and rubrical authorization. The chapter concludes by proposing that pre- and post-baptismal catechesis, and rites and prayers for the ministry of the baptized in the world, be included in Prayer Books themselves.