Reader CSL Requests: "Please write a post about home oratories. Assume your reader is a tourist from Mars."

Let's assume as well that I am from Mars.  Seriously.  I know next to nothing about the subject.

However, I assume a home oratory would consist of a small group of people  -- probably all Anglicans but not necessarily so -- who live in a locale where no orthodox Anglican church exists and who have accordingly decided to meet on a regular basis to have Christian fellowship and read one or both of the offices, perhaps followed by a Bible study and or Anglican studies.   If the oratory decides it wants to become a mission, the group would select an Anglican province with which to affiliate and notify the bishop to ask for oversight.

Queen Anna's Oratory

The Power of the Housegroup

Here are a couple of articles from the ACC:

ACC Mission Church How To

ACC Church Planting

Comments

[CSL]

Thank you for supplying these links and the additional links in the following post. I'm glad that I asked about home oratories because I had a somewhat different idea come to mind.

The assumption in all these linked examples is that there is at least one person in the small group with sufficient experience to lead a service according to the Anglican tradition throughout the church year. The BCP is designed to be easy to follow, but having attempted to use it for Sunday Morning Prayer using YouTube videos of recorded services as a guide, I believe that personal experience or guided training is necessary to avoid fumbling and frustration, especially if one intends to invite guests. Absent a missionary priest or deacon, building Anglican households seems to be a necessary precursor to building Anglican missions. To that end, basic instructional material needs to be developed and published, not just on what Anglicans believe but also on how to pray and sing in an Anglican manner.

[Embryo Parson]

I'm glad you followed up with this comment, CSL, as I was intending to ask you if you had any follow up questions. Your response has prompted me to start a new category of blog entries devoted to the basics of reciting the offices and other things people new to Anglicanism might need to know for the purposes of starting a home group. Stay tuned.

[CSL]

Tuned, I shall stay. But seriously, this seems to be an overlooked aspect of evangelism, that is, the re-acquainting of Anglo-Americans with their Anglican Christian heritage. Being taught at the outset to pray and sing properly will make the novice so much more comfortable when he or she finally has a chance to visit an Anglican church. We ought not to underestimate the worth of the "Hey! That's how we do it, too!" moment. There is a learning curve, not insurmountable but daunting nonetheless. Yet, if one can learn to be a fake Russian, one can learn to be a genuine Anglican.

About the tardy reply, I began a comment the same day but was called away before submitting it. After seeing the additional post the following day, I chose to wait to see what else you might find. Sorry to have left you hanging.