Seeker's Compline

It seems a very long time ago we were asked to read 5 Keys for Church Leaders. I devoured the book, underlining and adding !s until the pages were a spider web of ink. The section that covers welcoming seekers spoke very strongly to me, it is a place I think my parish is weak. Yet when I began looking online for worship material I found nothing that I liked. It seemed that in an effort to strip "churchness" from our Prayer Book services congregations had lost the artistry, the poetry that makes our services so beautiful.

So I did something I am still a little surprised at. I wrote my own. I sat down surrounded by copies of the BCP (they seem to accumulate like the dust bunnies under the bed until there is a little drift of them in all sizes and shapes), a couple dog eared bibles, and a little thrill in my heart. I tackled Compline. It is short and I know it so well the words have written themselves on my soul. Surely, I thought, this I could handle.

After much work, much editing, it is done. Or at least a first version is done. I feel inadequate for what I have created. It in no way could stand next to the poetry of the BCP. But it is what it is, and I offer it here for anyone who might find it even a little useful. I am releasing it under a creative commons license. Click the little link below to see how this works. NOTE: New version uploaded 6.17.2007. I have limited storage space online so only the most recent version will be maintained for download. Email me if you need an older copy.

Seeker's Compline


This
work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.