Along with The Book of Common Prayer, the worship life of The Church of England has been richly blessed with The Alternative Service Book 1980 for the last twenty years. The authorisation for the ASB expires in 2000, and General Synod has only re-authorised some parts of it for continuing use. The Church is aiming to replace the ASB with a series of books under the general head of Common Worship, the core book of which will be for use mainly at Sunday services. Other books will make particular provision for different aspects of the liturgy: so there is (or will be) a Daily Office book, containing Morning Prayer, Prayer in the Day, Evening Prayer and Night Prayer, together with a full Psalter printed out; a Eucharist manual; an initiation book, containing services of admission to Baptism and Confirmation; a Times and Seasons book, with specialist provision for the whole year; and something like a 'bishop's book', with services for Ordination and Confirmation.

So you can see immediately that the books will be user-friendly, in that they will provide services for when they're needed, and not burden members of the congregation with lots of unnecessary material they are unlikely regularly to need. To cover all the various needs, there will also be a certain duplication of services in the books: so the Initiation book contains the Confirmation services, as will also the Bishop's book: the Sunday core book will have some of the provision found in the Daily Office book and the Eucharistic book, as well as a Form of Baptism, will also have a Psalter.

The aim is to provide congregations with a true richness of worship and so enhance their life of prayer.