When Laura Nilles wants to find God amid the hubbub of her daily life, she knows where to look.

God is in the silence, the chanting, the candles and the reflective readings of a Taize worship service.

“You can just kind of feel the spirit flowing through the room,” says Nilles, a member of St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church.

Nilles is part of a growing movement of Christians who are including Taize – a reflective, meditative service – as part of their worship life. The worship style has been around for 65 years, and it’s gradually gaining popularity around the globe.

“They like the time to be quiet,” says Emily Elliott, music director at Centenary United Methodist Church, who is involved in several Taize services. “It doesn’t scream in your face. It’s not evangelical in you’re not trying to get followers. It’s low-pressure.”

Reflection

A handful of worshipers sit in the choir room at Plymouth Congregational Church, 925 Vt.

Laura Nilles, Lawrence resident, lights her husband Keith Nilles' candle during a Taize worship service at Plymouth Congreg-ational Church.

This regular Taize (pronounced tuh-ZAY) gathering has been going on for several years and is a joint effort with St. John’s and Centenary. The group usually meets the last Friday of the month but meets every Friday during Lent and Advent.

The services are simple.

A guitarist and piano player play the chords under a series of chantlike songs, some written in Latin and others in English. Most are four to six lines long and are repeated six to eight times. Sometimes, the musician leaders sing harmonies with the melody provided by the congregation.

“The more you repeat, the more you don’t have to think about the words anymore and you can just be in the moment,” Elliott says.

Courtney Kuhlen/Journal-World photo Candles play a role in Taize services during singing and meditation periods. The lighting of candles occurs while worshipers sing in latin "Ubi Ceritas et amor,/Ubi Ceritas, Deus ibi est."

There are breaks in the music. During some, biblical passages or other devotions are read. During others, there are several minutes of silence. In the middle of the service, worshipers are asked to lift up prayer concerns.

A candle sits at the front of the room, and attendees light additional candles during the service. In other Taize services, there are Christian icons placed around the room.

“I love it,” says Gloria Hinshaw, a Plymouth member whose husband, Lew, helps organize the service. “It’s a wonderful thing for me at the end of the week, just to come and immerse myself in something else that isn’t dealing with work and family. This is time for God and I.”

Lew Hinshaw sings while Laura Nilles adds her candle to the collection at the front of the room during Taize worship at Plymouth Congregational Church, 925 Vt. Nilles says she has been attending Taize worship services for about two years.

Time for silence

Taize worship was founded in 1940 in the Taize region of France. A group of Christians started an ecumenical community dedicated to material and spiritual sharing, celibacy and simplicity of life.

Though the worship style has spread around the world, the community still exists in France and is a pilgrimage spot for Christians – and especially young Christians – from around the world.

Lara West, music director for Lutheran Campus Ministries and Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, attended services there in 1999.

“The biggest difference between there and here was there they had so many people,” she says, noting the worship in France had about 800 people. “A lot of times with the Taize services here, when you repeat the chants, it can be hard to drop out for a time and think about the music and the Bible passages. With more people, you can back off and think about things.”

Emily Elliott plays piano while Lew Hinshaw plays guitar at a Taize worship service on Oct. 28. Elliott is also the director of music ministries at Centenary United Methodist Church.

West helps with Taize services that take place some Wednesdays at Lutheran Campus Ministries, 18 E. 13th St. On other Wednesdays, the group has more traditional prayer services.

West calls Taize “countercultural.”

“It is so different from everything else that goes on in our culture,” she says. “When you’re driving or at home, you’re hearing things from the radio or TV. You have distractions going on. This is a time for silence, which we rarely experience, to get deeper in our spiritual life and have time for reflection.”

Shawn Norris, pastor for Lutheran Campus Ministries, says he’d like the Lawrence Taize communities to combine efforts to get larger congregations. He says he thinks more people would attend the services if they knew about them and learned about Taize.

“Everybody I talk to now, their lives are like Sunday worship is,” Norris says. “It’s ‘bam, bam, bam,’ and there’s not much time to pause. This offers that opportunity.”