I used to look at the big Dictionaries of Liturgy and wonder if they were worth all that money. I held onto my dollars and spent years not knowing what a collect was.

You don’t have to live in this kind of humiliation. IVP has published the Pocket Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship by Brett Scott Provance, a wonderfully comprehensive resource that won’t cost you a semester’s tuition and will provide you with all the liturgical information you need to actually know what your Anglican and Lutheran friends are talking about when they say “rubric.”

Just this morning I brought the book with me to breakfast, where my friend Joe asked me what the Ave Maria actually was. Right there in the Pocket Dictionary was a fine article with the lyrics and a complete explanation. Perfect. And that is the case with over 600 terms, persons and pieces of liturgical history.

The Dictionary is balanced between Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Orthodox and Protestant/Evangelical traditions. Some of the articles are quite substantial. It’s a superb resource for the IM audience and I highly recommend it for you or as a gift for that person you know who is seeking to get out of their own liturgical box into the broader, deeper, more ancient church.

I’m glad IVP gave me this book to review, because now I’m one of three Baptists who can identify a baldachino.