News and reviews

The following review is reprinted with permission from the 2 February 2001 edition of the Church of England Newspaper.

New technology boosts Common Worship

Victoria Kelly

More than 5,500 people have taken up the Church of England's service and worship planning software, Visual Liturgy, since its launch by Church House Publishing in 1997.

Sales of the software package - which is based on the Windows® 95 format and is compatible with all Microsoft® Windows® operating systems thereafter - have already exceeded £500,000, proving that the technological revolution has well and truly entered the church.

The package has recently been up-dated to accomodate the newly authorised Common Worship services, published last autumn. Visual Liturgy 3.0, published on CD-ROM, is aimed at clergy, parish administrators and others with responsibility for producing service sheets Sunday by Sunday or special one-off orders of service for parish occasions.

Providing templates for the most widely used services, the latest version includes all services and additional material from both Common Worship: Services and Prayers for the Church of England and Common Worship: Pastoral Services. It allows the user to choose from an array of options within the services, combine these with a choice of readings from the three-year leactionary and, if necessary, paste the whole composition into a word processing package.

The program provides a calendar until 2010 with lectionary readings (in both NIV and NRSV translations) given in full for principal services on Sundays and Holy Days, and references given for other days. It also contains an extensively cross-referenced hymn index of 2,000 items, including Common Praise, with the full text of hymns appearing where copyright allows.

Extensive online help, giving notes to services as well as useful information about the software, ensures that the procedure runs as smoothly as possible.

The success of Visual Liturgy has also prompted a strong interest from other denominations. The program's designers, Matthew Tickle and David Green, together with Church House Publishing, are currently working with the Methodist Church to create its own program, while interest has been shown from other Churches in both the UK and abroad. Hymn and Bible software publishers, aware of its success within the Church, are now producing packages which link in with Visual Liturgy.

(Ed. - David Green and Matthew Tickle did not design the program but worked for Church House Publishing on version 3.0 alongside other staff. At the time of writing, a Methodist version had already been published).

In short, Visual Liturgy 3.0 gives those composing services a wealth of relevant information at the touch of a few buttons, allowing clergy to customize services to specific requirements. Simple to use, even for the most computer-shy, it can turn a once lengthy affair into a quick and uncomplicated task. With everything needed to construct services for any occasion at your fingertips, it looks set to become an indispensable part in the preparation of church services in the 21st century.

This article first appeared in the Church of England Newspaper, dated 2 February 2001 and is copyright © Church of England Newspaper. Reproduced by permission.