Advent 1: Worship in the style of Taizé at Lutheran Church of the Savior

On Wednesdays this Advent we gather for worship in the style of the Taizé Community in the village of Taizé, France. Begun during World War II, Taizé has become an international, ecumenical Christian community of reconciliation between people. Each year tens of thousands of young people come to Taizé to worship together and experience a simple lifestyle grounded in Jesus’ love and care for all.

Worship in the Taizé style is very meditative, with songs repetitive  so their simple words and melodies can sink into our bones and live deeply within us. This worship includes a long period of silence for prayer and reflection, appropriate during this season of long, dark nights and frantic busy days. To enhance this meditative style, we will gather and leave our worship space in silence. Join us on the four Wednesdays of Advent, 11/30, 12/7, 12/14, and 12/21, to experience this new accent on some very ancient Christian worship. 

While the above advertisement is well and good, I want to take a second to mention again how important Taizé has been in my own spiritual formation. I have visited the community three times: twice in 2000 and once in 2001. In the Spring of 2000 I was living in Germany - Halle, during both Taizé visits - studying with a group of American students from Gustavus Adolphus and St. Olaf Colleges. We were an odd bunch, lots of religion majors and folks struggling to make sense of a Lutheran expression of Christianity in the face of a complex world. 

Skipping over the details as to why, I'll say that we wound up gathering for prayer and song a whole lot, drawing on (and participating directly in) the common lives of historical and current monastic and intentional Christian communities. For our week-long Spring Break, about half the group decided to go to Taizé, the place that had furnished much of the music and some of the flavor of our gatherings. At Taizé we met young people from all over Europe and a few further-flung, building curious friendships across barriers of language, culture, and background. My experience of community, simplicity and faith at Taizé greatly influenced my future, as it steered me toward Lutheran Volunteer Corps and eventually toward my vocation. A few of us returned to Taizé for Easter that year, led by our intrepid professor who rented an odd little car and drove us across western Europe so we could go to church one day. 


I have difficulty explaining how is is that the worship of Taizé lives so deeply in me. I think it was the first Christian worship in which I experienced a connection with God and with those gathered around me. For me, faith could never be exclusively about my own two-way relationship with God. Always that relationship has been shaped and balanced by the relationships I have shared with other followers, or seekers, or conspirators, or however I should refer to those with whom I share faith and questions and worship and bread.

Further, the historic basis of the Taizé community impresses me deeply: this community was founded to house refugees from war, and continued as a community of reconciliation for Europe and for Christians of every stripe. I think this message of reconciliation is vitally important to all followers of Jesus in these troubled times, as we seek healing and wholeness for ourselves and our communities of every kind. 

Worship in the Taizé style begins by asking what we have in common: faith, scripture, prayer and song, and combines those elements in a simple, direct, accessible way. And yet the simplicity of this worship points clearly to the great, complex mystery of who God is and how God loves. This month we wait for the celebration of one central element of this great mystery: Emmanuel, God who is with us, human and divine. Jesus shattered every expectation of both the humble and the powerful, reconciling this flawed world to the ineffable divine love that created and sustains all that is and all that will be. I hope that you too find our Wednesday worship in the Taizé style a helpful setting to ponder this great mystery, and to open yourself anew to the transformational love of God in Jesus Christ.