Last year I wrote a series of articles on two service books, New Every Morning and Each Returning Day, used by the BBC during (and after) World War Two in their fifteen-minute Daily Service. My goal was to see if there were any lessons to be learned for conducting worship today, and I think there are at least hints. Particularly how much you can simplify worship, and how you can identify themes for worship. (I may pick up this series later.) The series begins here:
The other articles are here, here, and here.
So, what’s changed? Last year, I used the BBC Genome to read schedules from the Radio Times, which had a little blurb for the Daily Service and longer outlines for the longer weekly services. Unfortunately, when I was writing the series, only the Radio Times issues for 1939 were online. So only the opening months of the war. The BBC’s schedule was still being retooled for wartime (all of the local services were merged into a single Home Service, and later one for the Forces) and Each Returning Day hadn’t been published yet.
Glancing back to that series, I was prompted to look again at the BBC Genome, and lo! the many years of issues filled in! (Which you probably guessed if you saw the title.) Now I have more data to get a sense of the services.
Here is the service for June 5, 1944, the day before D-Day.
from page 61 of ‘ New Every Morning,’ and page 38 of ‘ Each Returning Day.’ Jesu thy mercies are untold ; Psalm 32 ; Help us to help each other, Lord
That is New Every Morning service 14, “Suffered under Pontius Pilate.” The alternate Psalm is 16; I suspect Psalm 32 was the Coverdale version. There is a touching prayer for “the afflictions of thy people.” I would like to think it was used. Besides “Jesus, thy mercies are untold,” there are five other suggested hymns, but “Help us to help each other, Lord” isn’t one. The service continues at some point with Day 17 in Each Returning Day, “For the gift of sympathy.”
Amen to that.
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