The Collect in the Churches of the Reformation

The Collect is a form of prayer which is a core part of the liturgical worship of most Christian traditions certainly in the Christian West yet relatively little work has been done to reflect on the use of this common form of prayer in different traditions and the Protestant tradition in particular.In this representative collection of essays Bridget Nichols draws together a range of leading scholars who reflect on the history and the development of this form of prayer common to all churches of the western tradition.As well as offering a historical introduction the book offers reflections on the collect in the Methodist tradition in Baptist worship in Scandinavian Lutheran traditions in American Lutheranism and on collect writing today.Dr Bridget Nichols is the Lay Chaplain to the Bishop of Ely. Her publications include Liturgical Hermeneutics (Peter Lang 2006) and 'Liturgy as Literature' in Andrew Hass David Jasper and Elizabeth Jay (eds) The Oxford Handbook of English Literature and Theology (Oxford University Press 2007.Contributors include: Jeremy Haselock Karen Westerfield-Tucker Michael Perham John Lampard and David Kennedy.