In August 1546, the Genevan consistory dealt with the case of Loys Burdet, who was brought in to explain why he persisted in his Catholic worship practices, even though Geneva had been Protestant for a decade. Burdet had the habit of crossing himself when coming into church, admitted that he prayed to the Virgin Mary and for the dead, and stated that he would gladly go to Mass if Catholic worship were restored in Geneva. The consistory's admonitions did not reconcile him to the changes in Genevan worship practices: by the end of the encounter, Burdet threw down his rosary when asked to hand it in (Registres du consistoire de Genève, II, 273). Burdet's struggles in adapting to the very different worship environment of Reformed Geneva compared to his Catholic upbringing shed light on the very real challenges the Genevan authorities faced in moving the city from Catholic to Reformed worship.

Fortunately for scholars, there is a wealth of primary source materials on the changes that took place in worship during John Calvin's leadership of the Genevan church. Many of these sources have been carefully analysed and brought together in Elsie McKee's detailed study. Over the course of 660 pages of text and 280 pages of appendices, this volume offers an in-depth examination of worship and ministry in Geneva between Calvin's arrival in the city in 1536 and his death in 1564. McKee's work builds on and expands the studies of other scholars, including Thomas Lambert's still unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, ‘Preaching, Praying, and Policing the Reform in Sixteenth-Century Geneva’ (1998), and Christian Grosse's careful study of the theology and practice of the Lord's Supper in Reformation Geneva (Droz, 2008). Karen Spierling's analysis of baptismal practices in Geneva (Westminster John Knox, 2009), and T. H. L. Parker's study of Calvin's preaching (Westminster John Knox, 1992) also offer important assessments of key aspects of Genevan worship. What McKee's extensive study provides, however, is a comprehensive picture of Genevan worship in the period. It will surely become the go-to reference for any queries about how Genevans worshipped during these crucial decades.

The challenge in any work investigating worship in past centuries is to find the right balance between prescriptive and descriptive sources, particularly if the emphasis is on the lived experience of worship. McKee's careful investigations help readers see both what was intended and what actually took place when it came to the days and times of worship or the preaching rosters for each church for instance. After outlining the competing understandings of the nature of the church in the sixteenth century, McKee focuses on Calvin's ecclesiology in the introduction to her work. The primary sources referred to most often throughout the work are the records of the city council, Company of Pastors’ records, liturgies and other worship-related texts, catechisms, and Calvin's own writings.

Thanks to her painstaking research, McKee is able to reconstruct the pattern of worship services in Geneva, including where and when services took place, and which pastor(s) were leading worship at which services. She examines in detail the liturgies for regular Sunday worship, the quarterly celebrations of the Lord's Supper, and weekday worship services, including the Wednesday day of prayer gatherings. She also analyses the worship practices tied to baptisms and marriages and provides an in-depth analysis of Calvin's preaching. The focus on Calvin's homiletics makes sense, since few sermons by other pastors in Geneva have survived. The final chapter examines in some detail practices of worship in the home, including pastoral visits to the sick and dying, and ends with an overview of Calvin's round of activities over the course of a month in 1556. Reading through his many obligations, including attending meetings of the Company of Pastors and Consistory, appearing before the city council on a regular basis, participating in the clergy's weekly Bible study, preaching, teaching and visiting is eye-opening. One can hardly fathom how he managed to find time to prepare his sermons or lectures or engage in his extensive correspondence.

Among the most helpful aspects of the work is the focus on previously little-known or cryptic sources about Genevan worship. McKee's patient reconstruction of what Calvin might have preached on prior to 1549, when Denis Raguenier began to take down Calvin's sermons, is invaluable. Another treasure brought to light is the set of texts and prayers used in households or by pastors when visiting the sick or the dying in Geneva (appendix 11). Because of the nature of the sources used, the focus of the volume tends to be on the practice of worship from the point of view of the authorities. For instance, although chapter 2’s title is ‘Preachers and People in Church’, four-fifths of the chapter focuses on the pastors, and only the last ten pages concentrate on the people's experience. A greater use of the numerous entries in the Genevan consistory records that shed light on the population's understanding and practice of worship would have enriched the chapter and the work more generally. However, the overall length of the volume in its current form may have precluded expanding the work's remit to include a greater focus on the popular response to Genevan worship in this period.

The survival of so many different sources documenting various aspects of worship in Reformation Geneva made this work possible. Indeed, there are few other early modern communities with such a wealth of primary source material on the topic. Yet this volume would not have come together without McKee's persistence and commitment. The extensive text and detailed appendices provide a vast amount of information all gathered together and intelligently organised. Scholars working on any aspect of worship in Reformation Geneva will find the work to be an invaluable aid to their own research.