Taizé: What you are missing

For the past 10 years, I have been interested in Taizé. If you have never heard of Taizé you are missing out.  What is Taizé?  Well, that is a long story.  The short story is that Taizé is a small village in France where Brother Roger founded an ecumenical Christian community of prayer, song, study, service, reflection, worship, and solitude for young people over 70 years ago.  The community was founded as a protestant community and not a Catholic organization. Taizé music and worship is simplistic but deeply spiritual.  You most likely have heard a song or sung a Taizé song in church and never realized it.

For the past few weeks, I have enjoyed reading A Community Called Taizé by Jason Brian Santos.  Santos covers his experience with Taizé and pens about the greater spiritual community of Taizé, France.  The book begins with the grim death of the community’s founder, Brother Roger, but quickly moves into describing the whole experience of visiting Taizé.  As the reader walks with Santos, you immediately get the feeling that you would have similar reactions coming the Taizé community.  Having visited France in 1998, I can tell you that the feeling of culture shock is real and alarming: new food, new places, new language, new surroundings, new culture, new customs, and new… well, just about everything. Santos continues into the who, what, where, why, and how of the community.

As I am learning more about the community of Taizé, I am also listening to the music. The music and worship of Taizé is powerful.  Why?  Here are the 5 most powerful aspects of Taizé that you are missing out on:

1. Anyone can learn a Taizé song.  Taizé music is written in English, Latin, French, Spanish, and other languages.  The harmony and melodies are simple and some are chant like.  When worshipers gather in Taizé, France they sit on the floor in a large simple sanctuary.  Are the songs chants?  No, I said they are “chant like” but the songs are meditative.  Most of the songs use or base lyrics on scripture. The community describes their music: Singing is one of the most essential elements of worship. Short songs, repeated again and again, give it a meditative character. Using just a few words they express a basic reality of faith, quickly grasped by the mind. As the words are sung over many times, this reality gradually penetrates the whole being. Meditative singing thus becomes a way of listening to God. It allows everyone to take part in a time of prayer together and to remain together in attentive waiting on God, without having to fix the length of time too exactly. Listen to some music here.
2. Taizé is guided by scripture and community. This is something that the community sees as the greatest value of a Christian.  Every worship service contains scripture from the Psalms, Old Testament, Gospel, or other New Testament reading. The ability to hear the scripture, read it, and discuss it among other disciples is what grows our faith.  Over 100,000 people come to the community a year to experience a special time of worship, small group, and community.
3. Young people are the target community. Brother Roger, the founder, wanted the community to focus on young people.  Adults are welcomed to the worshiping community, but young people are given more freedom of when and how long to visit.  The young people also run the community by preparing meals, serving meals, clean bathrooms, welcome other worshipers, repair buildings, and look after the grounds.  How many of our churches but so much energy into making youth full participants in religious life?
4. Dynamic prayer. Taizé worship uses both personal prayer, public prayer, read prayers, and informal prayer. Prayer can be read, sung, or done in silence. Jason Brian Santos writes that many of the worshipers (the majority are young people age 15-29) stay after worship to pray. Sometimes for hours. How many people in your congregation stay after worship on Sunday to pray?  How many young people stay to pray?  In addition, the Taizé gather three times a day for prayer. How many times a day do you gather with others to pray?
5. Taizé worship is for everyone. As I stated before, the community is mainly for young people, but everyone is welcome.  In addition to being ageless, the community welcomes Christians from just about every part of the world.  That is why the songs are in so many different languages.  The unity that is shared in the community reflects the nature of being a worshiping people of “all nations.”  Just about every protestant denomination uses Taizé worship or hold Taizé services (even Baptist churches: link)

I pray that you will open yourself to experience the beauty, simplicity, and spirituality that Taizé prayer and worship offer.  Many of us may not come from contemplative worshiping communities, but let that not stop us from incorporating Taizé music, prayer, and worship into our daily spiritual diet.