Associated Parishes was founded in 1946 "by a group of clergy who were in despair over eleven o'clock Sunday morning" (according to the late Henry H. Breul, long-time member and former president of the Associated Parishes Council). The founder was John Patterson (1908-1988), rector of Grace Church, Madison, Wisconsin, along with Massey Shepherd, Samuel E. West, and John H. Keene. They and other priests began to use their parishes as laboratories for the liturgical movement in the Episcopal Church.
Their first goal was to restore the eucharist as the main service on Sunday. The people were to participate actively, with an offertory procession, the gospel read in the midst of the congregation, music that all could sing, and no choir procession. Altars were to be "liturgical," church art and architecture clear, joyful, and simple. The daily office was be celebrated every day in church, and baptisms, marriages, and funerals were to be public events. Only the 1928 Book of Common Prayer was to be used.
Fellowship around the altar extended to parish life. In addition to the vestry, an APLM parish was to have a parish council with committees for evangelism, education, worship, stewardship, and house and grounds. APLM also sought to forge links between the liturgy and social issues such as racial justice and the use of property. To spread its goals, APLM published pamphlets and held national and regional conferences.
During its first two decades, APLM urged loyalty to the official liturgy and interpreted the 1928 prayer book. By the 1960s, however, the need for a new Book of Common Prayer had become obvious. APLM positioned itself to take an active role in shaping the liturgy of the Episcopal Church. AP supported trial use of new and revised liturgies, several AP members were on drafting committees, and APLM's presence was a large part of the reason for the overwhelming passage of prayer book matters in General Convention. After the approval of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, APLM became one of the chief advocates of the new book.
In recent years APLM has broadened its activities to renewal of the
diaconate and the catechumenate, it has advocated the use of inclusive
language, and it has continued to publish brochures and the quarterly
journal Open. Now it is turning its attention toward the next
generation of liturgies and to further revision of the prayer
book.
