Praying Shapes Believing

A Theological Commentary on the Book of Common Prayer, Revised Edition

Ruth A. Meyers, Leonel L. Mitchell

Aug/2016, 432 Pages, Paperback, 5.5 x 8.5

ISBN-13: 9781596272729

2015 marks the 30th anniversary of Lee Mitchell’s great standard work on the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. As his student, protégée, and colleague, Ruth Meyers takes this classic work and updates it for the Church in its current era and for the future.

Ruth A. Meyers is Dean of Academic Affairs and Hodges-Haynes Professor of Liturgics at Church Divinity School of the Pacific. She served as chair of The Episcopal Churchs Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music through the conclusion of the 2012–2015 triennium and teaches throughout the Anglican Communion. She lives outside Berkeley CA.


Leonel L. Mitchell was an Episcopal priest, theologian, and professor of Liturgics at Seabury-Western Seminary. He is the author of Planning the Church Year, The Way We Pray: An Introduction to the Book of Common Prayer, and Pastoral and Occasional Liturgies: A Ceremonial Guide. He died in 2012.

"Lee Mitchell's Praying Shapes Believing has been standard fare in seminary classrooms since its appearance. Its influence has been incalculable. In recent years, as part of the church's on-going liturgical renewal, the book has needed updating, particularly in light of new research, new insights, and new trends in liturgical understanding. Ruth Meyers has done a wonderful job of giving Mitchell's work new life for another generation or more of students of the liturgy." —J. Neil Alexander, Dean of the School of Theology and Professor of Liturgy, Sewanee

"Leonel L. Mitchell's classic work remains an important resource for the church thanks to the considerable, careful, and respectful work of Ruth Meyers in her gentle update of his text. I have assigned Praying Shapes Believing to new seminary students every year that I have taught. I will continue to do so, confident in its renewed accuracy and relevance.” —Nathan Jennings, Associate Professor of Liturgics and Anglican Studies at the Seminary of the Southwest in Austin

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