I am strongly in favour of applying a positive creation-centred lens onto our Christian life, and highlighting that one of our marks of mission is “To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and renew the life of the earth.” I am opposed to the proliferation of themed Sundays where our internationally and ecumenically shared readings are abandoned for a concordance-style, cherry-picking proof-text set of readings. And I am surprised that the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia has handed over the alteration of our formularies to another body beyond our church, beyond our shores.

As the new ‘Feast of Creation in Christ’ comes without collect or additions/variations for the Great Thanksgiving, further down in this post I provide some initial suggestions.

The Common Life Liturgical Commission this month reported to General Synod Te Hīnota Whānui that

A significant change noted, in 2026, was Consultation on Common Texts [CCT], who manage the RCL, adoption of the Ecumenical ‘Feast of Creation in Christ’ into the RCL. The RCL is a Formulary of this church so this change will be reflected in future Lectionaries.

There are a number of “themed” Sundays (Disability Awareness Sunday; Refugee Sunday; Social Services Sunday; Religious Vocation Sunday; Anglican Communion Sunday; Battle of Britain Sunday; Tikanga Youth Sunday; etc). None of these abandon the agreed ecumenical/international lectionary readings. Prayers, hymns, songs, the sermon – all these can pick up the “theme”, and, somewhere in the set readings and psalm, one can usually find something to connect with the “theme”.

But this is not what is being done for the new ‘Feast of Creation in Christ’. On the first Sunday in September – which is obviously not the normal way of assigning readings in this system – there will be the option (it is, after all, not referred to the Anglican Church of Or for nothing!) of abandoning the readings used by the majority of Christians that Sunday (either the 22nd or 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time – depending on the year) and replacing them with “creationy” readings. I have, for many, many years now, provided a creation lens on the set readings – highlighting that this is a completely unnecessary abandonment. [One might note that CCT itself has an Anglican Church of Or approach; the celebration can be on the first Sunday in September “or September 1, or last Sunday of August if preferable for national calendar purposes” – my understanding is that our Church takes on all three of these options; alongside the options we have already agreed to on those days!]

In the early days of NZ Anglicanism’s liturgical renewal, a home-grown lectionary was created from a list of themes and then readings were assigned to each theme. After a time, a second year was added – some readings were repeated; many important texts, because of the concordance-style assigning process, were simply never read.

This theme approach has gotten into NZ Anglicanism’s DNA so that many church leaders still assign a theme to a Sunday, and see the collect – as just one example – as part of setting that theme. The scriptures are shoehorned to fit the theme. There even continue to be leaders and communities who will use the theme assigned for the “Two Year Series” as the “theme” of the Sunday even when the 3-year, non-themed, Revised Common Lectionary readings are what is used. There are three Sunday lectionary systems (or is it four?!) which are formularies of our Church (it is, after all, not referred to as the Anglican Church of Or for nothing!) For these communities, this coming Sunday the theme is “The gift of hope” (with collects provided on page 623 and yet using the readings from RCL).

The readings provided for this year (Year A) for the Feast of Creation in Christ are disappointing, highlighting the issues of a theme-based approach to choosing readings.

The first reading, from Genesis, we’ve already read twice this year – at the Easter Vigil and again on Trinity Sunday. This will be the third time this year. The second reading, from Acts, we all read on Easter 6 already. And many of us have already read Jn 1:1-5 twice this liturgical year (Christmas Eve/Day, and Christmas 2 on January 4).

Far better is to use a creation-centred approach to the readings for the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time:

The Exodus reading sets an earthy tone of land, springtime, full moon, lamb, fire, bread, herbs, and blood – in which life was understood to be held. Evil has for too long been read dualistically separating “heaven” and “earth”, “flesh” and “spirit”. We may need to read our New Testament texts into a more holistic vision where heaven and earth are more closely bound (Matthew 18:18), and our neglect of creation and greedy carelessness is included in a contemporary reading of the sins understood in Paul’s letter.

The Episcopal Church concurs with this approach: find creation-centred focuses in the set readings rather than concordance-seek creation readings as if creation isn’t shot through the scriptures. TEC’s approach here.

There is no indication of what liturgical colour to be used. Our NZ Anglican lectionary booklet (page 4) declares that the liturgical colours indicated in that publication “reflect common practice in most parishes” (no mention of other ministry units!) My guess is that, rather than waiting to ascertain what “common practice” develops, the Ordinary Sunday will be assigned Green and, being the Anglican Church of Or, the Feast of Creation in Christ will be assigned “Green or White”.

Here are two insertions that I have produced that may be inserted in an appropriate place (in the preface) of a Eucharistic Prayer:

Nature obeys your laws;
all times and seasons follow the rhythms you have given.
You set us in this world in all its wonders,
giving us a place within your creation
to cherish its life, care for its future, and join in its song of praise.

and/or

We give you thanks,
that through the risen Christ,
creation, bearing the pains of a new birth,
is being renewed and released from decay,
to share in the new life of God’s children.

My Eucharistic Prayers 1 and 2 are particularly appropriate for a focus on creation [a reminder: these are allowed to be used in NZ Anglicanism as part of A Form for Ordering the Eucharist].

A lot of further creation-focused resources are to be found here.

I am reluctant to advocate for abandoning the collect this year that is set in my Book of Prayers in Common as, like the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time readings, this collect is being used by the majority of Christians praying this day. If, however, a stronger creation focus is sought in the collect, I suggest The Reign of Christ — p. 72; with secondary options provided on p.54 or p.51. But again, I favour staying with the set collect, a further reason being that my book does not repeat a collect a second time in the year.

See a CofE critique here.

Our Church’s formularies are our binding agreed teaching and practice.

Until now, our Church has always been careful to not hand over our formularies (etc) to anyone beyond our Church. A couple of examples. There was some talk of simply saying that our Church’s prohibited degrees of marriage be the ones forbidden by the state. But, explicitly, the Church chose to list our own – even though they are identical. If and when the state should decide to alter its list, we will have to go through the process of deciding whether or not to bring ours into line with any such alteration.

When, in 1987, the General Synod was going through our draft NZ Prayer Book line by line, the Prayer Book Commission had put in a draft Nicene Creed that was being circulated by The English Language Liturgical Consultation [ELLC] for comment. In 1987, General Synod passed that draft into its text. In a conversation, I said that it would be the draft Nicene Creed translation that would end up as our NZ Prayer Book actual text. The Commission’s Chair was convinced that it was understood simply as a “placeholder” for when the final revision came through in 1988. I said that that is not how General Synod and the Church of England Empowering Act works. The final version of the Nicene Creed came out in 1988. Our prayer Book came out in 1989 – with the unaltered draft version of the Nicene Creed. NZ Anglicanism uses a version of the Nicene Creed (the “Faith of the Church”) that no one, but no one else uses!

The Consultation on Common Texts (the organisation that oversees the Revised Common Lectionary) explicitly states that the title for this Sunday is left over to the “relevant naming conventions of each denomination”. I will be interested to know if the meeting of General Synod Te Hīnota Whānui, in receiving the CLLC Report, spent any time on deciding what it would be called here – noting that it went through the twice-round process in order to decide whether to use “of” or “in” (and then ignored that huge effort in the annual lectionary booklet).

The suggestion that in celebrating the Feast of Christ in All Creation complete with the newly-assigned readings we are moving in a more ecumenical direction is patently false. The majority liturgical celebration is the Ordinary Sunday with its semi-continuous reading through Matthew and Romans.

In the NZ lectionary booklet (p. 138) there is mention of a “Feast of Christ in All Creation” which may (#Anglican Church of Or!) be celebrated on Sunday 15 November or 22 November. There is also, apparently, a “A Spring Festival of Praise to the Creator” (NZ lectionary booklet, p. 161).

There’s no reasoning provided for these, no readings, no resources, no propers (collect, sentence,…).

The first reference I can find to this is in the 1998 NZ Anglican Lectionary booklet, at the start (page 5) under the title “Days designated by Resolution of General Synod”:

General Synod 1986 approved and encouraged the celebration of 
the Feast of Christ in All Creation,
on the last or second to last Sunday before Advent,
and/or
A Spring Festival of Praise to the Creator,
during the spring season.
It also asked for suitable worship material to be provided. Refer to Rogation Days note.

There is no mention of anything under the “Rogation Days note”. I cannot locate any “suitable worship material provided” on the official website of this Church. I can find nothing in the latest editions of the books For All the Saints. Nor can I locate even any allusion to this in the much-expanded, A New Zealand Prayer Book He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa 2020 (or its revision 2024). 

Someone must know why “General Synod 1986 approved and encouraged the celebration of the “Feast of Christ in All Creation”. Someone must know why it then took 12 years before it was even mentioned in the NZ Anglican lectionary booklet. And why General Synod’s request “for suitable worship material to be provided” was never actioned (that would not have been a big ask)?

In any case, this is an outstanding example of the diminishment of Common Prayer and why I, from time to time, refer to NZ Anglicanism as “The Anglican Church of Or”. How much time was spent at General Synod Te Hīnota Whānui to clarify the Feast of Christ in All Creation, A Spring Festival of Praise to the Creator, and their relationship to the now-added Feast of Creation in Christ – or like the three different Sunday lectionary cycles, do they simply continue in the ever-expanding clutter of the Anglican Church of Or? (Or is it four – is the BCP1662 Sunday eucharistic cycle of readings still authorised as well as the other three?!)

The Liturgy Facebook Page
The Liturgy Twitter Profile
The Liturgy Instagram 
and/or sign up to a not-too-often email

image source