Taizé Monthly Prayer Service

Our next service is Aug. 1, 2024

Taizé is an ecumenical, meditative prayer experience using music, chants and scripture. We gather on the first Thursday of every month at 7 p.m. Each month we explore a different theme.

Mid-summer Lamentation

This summer has been filled with reports of disaster after disaster. Disasters can be large or small — a cancer diagnosis or a hurricane that kills many and leaves survivors homeless. Catastrophes threaten the very foundation of our lives. Deprived of peace, forgetting what happiness is, loss of the future and all that one hoped for from God. Such an experience cannot go unacknowledged.

One of the forms of biblical prayer is “lamentation.” We cry out in our pain, rather than pretending that we are okay. We hear the voice of lament in the Bible, even to the extent of blaming God. If we are honest, we must admit that when terrible things happen, we may sometimes feel as if God has it in for us. This is more a projection of our own fear and guilt than something that is true of God; and yet we can easily feel this way.

Ours is a faith that can also lament — lament before the face of God when our lives and the lives of others are harmed by forces beyond our control. Such lament, as the psalms teach us, is not the opposite of faithful praise but rather its partner. In the midst of pain, fear, and loss we cannot do otherwise than cry out to God, who is compassionate and merciful.

• The Thursday of each month, 7-8 p.m. central time
• Our next gathering is Aug. 1, 2024
• In-person and Zoom options available.
• A recording will be available after the service. 

 Registration is appreciated. Register to get details about the live stream.

Download a copy of the program from our latest service here: Aug 1 2024 Taizé Worship Aid.

What is Taizé?

Taizé prayer is practiced throughout the world. It is a meditative candle-lit form of community prayer that includes simple chants sung repeatedly, silence and prayers of praise and intercession. In prayer, we enter the silence, stilling the mind, opening the heart, surrendering to the action of the Spirit ever molding us into the image of Christ. The candles used in the service symbolize the presence of the risen Christ, who conquered darkness and sin and offers new life to all humankind.

Taizé Prayer comes from an ecumenical, monastic community in France and has spread to numerous spots around the world.

From the depths of the human condition, a secret aspiration rises up. Today many are thirsting for the essential reality: an inner life, signs of the Invisible. Nothing is more conducive to communion with the living God than meditative common prayer. When the mystery of God becomes tangible through the simple beauty of symbols, when it is not smothered by too many words, then a common prayer awakens us to heaven’s joy on earth.

All the videos of our Taize prayer services are available here.

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