For someone attending an Anglican service for the first time, it helps to know the basic shape most services follow. A typical Sunday Eucharist moves through four broad stages: the Gathering (opening hymn, greeting, and prayers of confession), the Liturgy of the Word (Bible readings, a psalm, the Gospel, and the sermon), the Liturgy of the Table (the Eucharistic prayer and the sharing of Communion), and the Dismissal (a closing blessing and sending out).
Congregations usually follow along using a service booklet, hymn book, or the Book of Common Prayer itself, with set responses that the whole congregation says or sings together — part of what makes Anglican worship “common” prayer rather than something led entirely by one person at the front.
The pace and style of this same basic structure can look quite different from parish to parish — from formal choral worship to simple, informal services — but the underlying shape is usually recognisable across the Anglican Communion.