Taize evening at St Hugh's


 The importance of being able to worship in a quiet and reflective way can never be underestimated. 

St Hugh's Banbury is providing a time of fellowship through Lent on Tuesday lunch times. Already more people came than the first week. We share in a simple meal and conversation with opportunity to support the vital work of Christian Aid.  

Added to this through Lent on Thursday evenings, for about thirty minutes, there is a time to be still and encounter God. So last Thursday we had opportunity to draw upon the Taize tradition. With candles and pictures to focus on, and the use of different chants, we were able to come to a time of silence before God. 

As someone who has always been a bit active I have over the years appreciated more and more being able to sit silently and allow the internal dialogue with God to happen. It took me some time to be able to sit in such a manner but I am the better for it. It was back in my days living in the potteries in the Wolstanton and Audley Methodist Circuit. Evening worship was not really working because the focus and numbers mainly came to the morning service. We needed to do something different not a carbon copy of the morning. 

Coming across 'Worship Feast' and using it meant being able to encourage those who did attend to use the Taize style. Over the weeks that followed we moved from five minutes silence to twenty or thirty minutes. Growing that ability to allow the silence to worship I believe helped me and those who attended to focus on God. That so many young people make their way to Taize each year gives hope to the fact there are many ways Christians can worship and flourish, and doesn't always require a worship band as enjoyable as they can be. 

So this past Thursday was a joy. Looking ahead there will be opportunities to draw upon the Iona Community and Northumbria community. So if you are in Banbury on a Thursday evening at 7pm come along and join in for you will be made welcome and enriched by the worship.

Brother Roger of the Taize community would say 'that when you sing your prayer you are saying it twice.' 

In offering the chants/prayers there is a God whose heart is open to receive them, and I find in the silence that sometimes I hear the voice of God responding. Sometimes it brings peace, sometimes it's a nudge to action, always it brings Hope.

God of community
bring to our world 
Your spirit of reconciliation
that all might be set free 
and live in community with you
and each other. Amen                       (c) Mark Goodhand





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