I'm homeschooling teenage boys, and am looking for a short book that explains what theology is, and either another short book or the same one, that explains the Anglican liturgy and service etc. My aim is to help the boys understand the Anglican service more so they feel more a part of it ... rather than something weird that adults do. There is 'Theology for Dummies' - can anyone better that? Better still, are there any freebies out there? Upbeat or witty writing would be a further bonus.
I am going to save one of our worship programs and scan it for you. One of the few things I like about it is the concise explanation of the parts of the service printed in the margins of the program. I would suggest that you begin to implement the daily office of Morning Prayer into their curriculum as well.
You might think I'm cracked, but Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis is a good starting point. Also, I've just finished "The Four Loves" by the same. BEAUTIFUL writing. Penguin publishes a concise collection of the writings of St Thomas Aquinas - also solid. Maybe you could flip through those and grasp a few chapters and type them up? Get "The New Catholic Children's Bible" - it has pictures and summarized gospel passages, as well as explanations as to why we believe what we do. It's great if you're a high Churchman or an Anglo-Catholic, but even those in the Low Church would appreciate what is contained within. I know an evangelical Anglican family who uses it because it contains certain passages from the Apocrypha, and incorporate it into their history lessons as well as bible lessons. Their children go to a public school, so it's more or less an after-school thing. I recommend this book with a grain of salt. It is a connect the dot book. Flip through the preview yourself, but it contains a few women 'priests' and so forth. The introductions are good, but I have some problems with the Eucharistic explanations. Loyola Press has a good website for children. They focus on the essentials of the faith, and are pretty sound. Anglicans Online has provided a beautifully comprehensive guide. On this page you will find many and 'divers manners' of education (this page is child-specific), but most of them are solidly orthodox, thoroughly Catholic, and thoroughly Anglican. This website has a lot actually. I condense a bit of stuff usually from their links for my nephew as he grows up. I hope my links were bit helpful to you. It's hard to find anything thoroughly Anglican, but I figure if you find something Catholic, you've found something thoroughly Anglican already. I'm sorry there's no single book in itself, but the explanations in the Book of Common Prayer are thorough enough, even the explanations before hand. I'll ask the vicar tomorrow if he can help me with any information. He has a PhD in Pastoral Provision for Youth. He's instilled a bit of vigour in me for the same.
This was our order of service for Septuagesima. Ignore the last paragraph of the last page, it was local announcements. If it does not open for you, let me know. The one other caveat is, this program was prepared for the chapel my Canon serves for a Saturday vigil, without an editing to align it with the Sunday, save changing the Propers. But the parts of the service are the same.
My goodness! Props to your parish secretary who does all of this up! Everything is explained down to detail! I love it.
Another book which might be helpful is "mere theology" by Alister McGrath. It gives a general outline of the importance and place for theology. The book is quite open to a more non-literal interpretation of Genesis which may or may not be an issue for you depending on your own views. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007UPDCUS/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/321895.Turning_Points Well not really a theology book, Turning Points is a readable treatment of church history. By picking and choosing major events and giving each a 20-25 page treatment, Mark Noll chose to do church history in a somewhat novel way. The result avoids a lot of the pitfalls of other books in the category. I suggest you have them read it because it was designed as a sort of introductory text-book, something of a 100-200 level course. There is a fair amount of theology in the book and I don't think theology can be taught effectively without some consideration of the context in which it was developed.
ACNA's catechism is quite good and The Anglican Way by Fr. Thomas McKenzie is also useful for beginners.