The following is excerpted from Patricia Bays book about the Anglican Church called Meet the Family.

Welcome to the Anglican Church! Perhaps you are a visitor or a new member and want to know something more about the customs and traditions of this church. Perhaps you have been an Anglican for a long time, but are curious about what the Anglican Church stands for and are looking for a refresher course.

If you are coming into the Anglican Church from another tradition, you may find some of our customs unfamiliar, perhaps confusing. I can sympathize to some extent with your experience.

Let me tell you something of my own story of discovering the Anglican Church. I was born the oldest child of a Scottish Presbyterian mother and an Irish Roman Catholic father, and was baptized and raised in the Roman Catholic Church. We were an observant family, attending Mass every Sunday, reciting the family Rosary, saying grace at meals, fasting on Fridays, attending church schools. Religious customs were part of everyday life.

Our Presbyterian grandmother lived with us. She demanded very strict standards of behavior from us. From her we learned Bible stories and hymns. She also imparted, somehow, the idea of God as a strict parent -- a view that I have had to struggle to overcome in my adult life.

My sister and I attended a United Church girls' school, a school deeply influenced by the Christian tradition, with daily worship, fine liturgical music and excellent required classes in Christian knowledge. In its daily chapel services, I encountered the worship traditions of The United Church of Canada and its predecessors, the Methodist, Congregational, and Presbyterian churches.

I love the, worship, with its ordered patterns of prayer, the same from week to week and yet varied according to the seasons. I love the rhythm and music of the language of worship, and the colour and dramatic action of the services. Anglican worship, quite deliberately, I think, involves all our senses. Our churches are (usually) visually tasteful, colourful, and attractive. Wood stone, fabric, appeal to touch as well as sight; flowers or incense connect with the sense of smell; the Eucharist, celebrated week by week, stimulates the sense of taste. Anglican worship is much more than a performance to be observed or listened to.

I appreciate also a certain "matter-of-factness" about Anglican worship. We join in common prayer. "Common" does not mean "ordinary" in this context. It means that we all say the same words together when we pray. Anglicans use set texts, printed in our books of Common Prayer.

You will not find the priest extemporizing in prayer. Our worship does not depend on the personality of the priest or the quest for novelty or the stirring up of an emotional reaction. We worship God in accustomed patterns, the same week by week. This provides an order and stability to worship, though we do have variations According to the seasons of the year.

The sacraments, particularly the Eucharist, are an important part of being an Anglican. For us, the Eucharist is daily bread, food for our journey. It is to be celebrated frequently, on all occasions, in sorrow and in joy.

I find helpful the importance of reason common sense in Anglican theology. God gave us minds and expects us to use them. The Anglican Church places a great deal of importance on theological exploration, and I appreciate this freedom to question and explore.

Sometimes this exploration brings controversy. In the 1960s Bishop John Robinson's book Honest to God explored the Christian teaching about the nature of God in terms that secular society could understand. In the 1990s Bishop John Spong has written for contemporary men and women a number of provocative books exploring the Bible and the Christian approach to human sexuality. Both authors have generated a good deal of debate, in church circles and in the wider world. I value membership in a church, which allows and, in fact, encourages such exploration, and is not threatened by the debate.