Sunday Prayer for the Whole Assembly

What if liturgical preparation began not with what presiders do, but with how the whole assembly prays—with voices, bodies, movement, and space? 

Sunday Prayer for the Whole Assembly is a practical and theologically grounded manual for liturgical preparation and celebration, written for clergy and liturgy planners in Episcopal and ELCA congregations. Drawing on core denominational resources—including the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, Enriching Our Worship, Evangelical Lutheran Worship, and All Creation Sings—this book invites readers to rethink how worship is prepared, enacted, and embodied by the whole assembly.

Centered on the four-fold ordo—Gathering, Word, Table, and Sending—and focused especially on the Sunday celebration of the Eucharist, Sunday Prayer for the Whole Assembly shifts attention away from presider-centered preparation toward an assembly-shaped vision of worship. Rather than concentrating on what ordained and appointed ministers do on behalf of others, this volume explores how those ministers prepare the conditions that enable the full, active, and bodily participation of everyone gathered.

In conversation with James Farwell’s Ritual Excellence, Sunday Prayer for the Whole Assembly equips worship leaders to plan celebrations that are coherent, participatory, and deeply rooted in embodied communal prayer.