Anglican Spirituality

Liturgical/Biblical:

Anglican spirituality is rooted in communal daily prayer (Morning and Evening Prayer) and is shaped by the principles laid out in The Book of Common Prayer. Therefore, Scripture has primary importance along with the prayerful meditation on the psalms, and our way of praying tends to have more formality and structure than many non liturgical churches.

Communal:

For Anglicans, communal prayer comes before and shapes personal prayer. Prayer in Tewkesbury Abbey is seen as an activity that connects us to God and to each other – the ‘other’ may also include our brothers and sisters who have died. Communal prayer is a part of daily, weekly and yearly rhythms that both surrounds and informs our community when it gathers either to worship or make decisions.

Sacramental:

Anglicans see the world, itself, as sacramental. That is to say, that the material world is capable of mediating God’s grace. We emphasise the two primary Gospel sacraments of Baptism and The Eucharist as well as offer the other sacramental signs of confirmation, matrimony, reconciliation, anointing and ordination.

Incarnational:

Anglicans emphasise the incarnation, God being born as Jesus and entering fully into human life and history. Accordingly Anglican have a ‘down to earth’ spirituality that affirms the goodness of life and the created world, the reality that things are not as they should be, but believe that the extraordinary is found in the ordinary.

Mystical:

Anglicans experience union with God as happening over time, gradually through a journey aided by personal prayer and discipline. This perception is confirmed by the teaching of the Christian saints throughout the ages.

Tewkesbury Abbey is a Church of England parish church in the diocese of Gloucester within the Anglican Communion. As such its style of Christian spirituality and temperament has been shaped by this context.