Taizé Prayer Service

ELPC offers evening prayers with chants from Taizé every Wednesday, 7 pm, in the Chapel (see our calendar for schedule changes).

The Rev. BJ Woodworth is ELPC’s director of Spiritual Life Ministries and minister of Taizé Prayer. Our hour-long service includes sung prayers, beautiful music, a time of silence, spoken and silent prayers, and opportunities for individual prayer and anointing. Childcare is usually available, but please call ahead to confirm.

In addition to our weekly service, we offer a 15-minute Taizé meditation as a downloadable mp3 file. Whether in your own prayer times, on a walk, in your car, or over lunch, this meditation is designed to help you quiet down, pray, and reflect. Each mediation includes two songs and a guided meditation from our Taizé service. Click here to download or stream these meditations.

Our Taizé service is based on a style of worship developed at the Taizé community in France founded in the 1940s by the late Brother Roger. Originally a refuge during the war, Taizé has developed into an ecumenical prayer center for visitors from all over the world. Today, the Taizé community is made up of over a hundred resident brothers, both Catholics and from various Protestant backgrounds/traditions. Taizé wants to be a sign of reconciliation between divided Christians and between separated peoples. Our service was previously covered in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. You can hear examples of songs on the Taizé community’s website and view a short video about Taizé below.

In following you, O Christ, we choose to love and not to harden our hearts, even when the incomprehensible happens. As we remain in your presence with perseverance, day after day, and pray with simplicity of heart, you come and make us into people who are a leaven of confident trust by the way we live. And all that your Gospel calls us to, all that you ask of us, you give.

Brother Roger of Taizé