The Lord be with you.

As we enter this season of Advent,

may the love of God the Father, and the grace of Jesus the Son,

and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be and abide with us all.

While we ask, Lord, for the most meaningful Advent season ever,

we sadly confess having done so little with so much.

Forgive us Lord,

for not bending the knee,

for not reading your Word,

for not searching our hearts,

for not facing our sins.

Forgive us according to your tender mercies, O God!

Grant that when Christmas morning breaks for us this year,

we may have a fresh sense of your presence

and a renewed resolve to live to the praise of Christ’s glory. Amen.

Be on guard! Be alert!

You do not know when that time will come.

It’s like a man going away:

He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge,

each with his assigned task,

and tells the one at the door to keep watch.

Therefore keep watch because you do not know

when the owner of the house will come back—

whether in the evening, or at midnight,

or when the rooster crows, or at dawn.

If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping.

What I say to you, I say to everyone: “Watch!”

—Mark 13:33-37, NIV

Besides this, you know what time it is,

how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep.

For salvation is nearer to us now

than when we became believers;

the night is far gone, the day is near.

Let us then lay aside the works of darkness

and put on the armor of light.

—Romans 13:11-12, NRSV

"Prepare the Way" to be sung after the reading for the Third Sunday of Advent.

 

[First Sunday of Advent]

The Advent wreath is a circle with no beginning and no end.

It is a symbol of God’s unending love and faithfulness.

and will call him Immanuel.”
The angel Gabriel said to Mary, “Greetings you who are highly favored!
The Lord is with you.”
We rejoice that we too have found favor with God.
God’s mercy extends to those who fear him from generation to generation.
—based on Isaiah 7:14; Luke 1:28, NIV
[Second Sunday of Advent]
The Advent wreath is a circle with no beginning and no end.
It is a symbol of God’s unending love and faithfulness.
Its light reminds us of Jesus, the light of the world.
In him was life, and the life was the light of all people.
The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness did not overcome it.
Once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light.
Live as children of light.
If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light,
we have fellowship with one another,
and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
We are all children of light and children of the day;
we are not of the night or of darkness.
Jesus said, “Everyone who believes in me
should not remain in the darkness.”
—based on John 1:4-5; 12:46; Ephesians 5:8; 1 Thessalonians 5:5; 1 John 1:7, NRSV
[Third Sunday of Advent]
The Advent wreath is a circle with no beginning and no end.
It is a symbol of God’s unending love and faithfulness.
Isaiah the prophet calls us to prepare for the coming of Jesus
by making straight all that is crooked.
A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all people shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
Let us prepare for Jesus, the Christ,
who is anointed by God to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners.
For as a garden causes seeds to grow,
so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise
to spring up before all the nations.
—based on Isaiah 40:3, 5; 61:1, 11, NRSV
[Fourth Sunday of Advent]
The Advent wreath is a circle with no beginning and no end.
It is a symbol of God’s unending love and faithfulness.
The shepherds were the first to hear
the joyful announcement of Christ’s birth—
the good news of great joy for all the people.
Upon seeing the baby Jesus, the shepherds
spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child,
and all who heard it were amazed.
We have also heard this wonderful news.
We welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit.
Though we have not seen Jesus, we love him;
and even though we do not see him now, we believe in him.
And we are filled with an expressible and glorious joy.
—based on Luke 2:10, 17-18; 1 Thessalonians 1:6; 1 Peter 1:8, NIV
[Eve of Christmas or Christmas Day]
The Advent wreath is a circle with no beginning and no end.
It is a symbol of God’s unending love and faithfulness.
Jesus Christ is the brightest revelation of God’s love.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
Christ Jesus, who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.
We have seen his glory,
the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father,
full of grace and truth.
—based on John 1:14; Philippians 2:5-7; Colossians 1:15, NIV

This simple refrain is from Taizé, the ecumenical community in eastern France that has become a place of pilgrimage for thousands of people each year (see Reformed Worship, Issue 8) who gather to participate in beautiful and simple worship. Since people come with so many different languages and from so many worship traditions, the community has developed a profoundly rich and simple style of worship music. Its simplicity lies in the short repetitive structures (see also "Eat This Bread" in Reformed Worship, Issue19). Its richness lies in the varied textures that can support the singing.

 

Many Taizé songs are constructed as canons, or rounds, with different instrumental descants that can be layered on in kaleidoscope fashion to build a shape that can rise and fall in intensity. The worship leader/music director must determine the "right" moment to end the singing, a choice that depends somewhat on the congregation, on the role the hymn plays in the service, and on the number of instruments. If only keyboard is used, two or three repetitions may be sufficient. Using additional instruments creates the potential for building up and sustaining the singing for more repetitions.

 

Try using "Prepare the Way" as the call to worship for the month of December or Advent. It would make an excellent prelude if your congregation sings "gathering songs." It would also make an excellent processional. If you wish to develop a plan for a month of singing this refrain, consider the following suggestions:

 

The first week, the prelude concludes by moving into the "Basic Accompaniment." After a pianist or organist plays the song two or three times, a male soloist from the back of the church sings the refrain in a firm voice. (There is nothing wimpy about John the Baptizer or about this call—sing it with strength!) Then a choir' (children and/or adult) could pick it up and sing it through once or twice more, perhaps going into the round. If the choir is in the front of the sanctuary, this antiphonal call to worship will surround the congregation.

 

The second week, again begin with soloist or choir singing one time through, and then bring the congregation in. Depending on how adept your congregation is at reading or singing in harmony, have them sing once in unison, and then once more in canon. (For more on congregations singing in canon, see RW 30.) This time add one or more instruments.

 

The third week and fourth Sundays, have the choir add the alleluias, layering them on top of the congregations singing after the singing is going well. Add more instruments too.

 

On Christmas Day, drop the "Prepare" text, and have the choir only sing the 'Alleluias" during part of the service, perhaps after the reading of the gospel lesson.

(from Reformed Worship, Issue 33)

Consider the following suggestion for use with children:

At first, sing in unison, then try in two-part canon (men’s and women’s voices), and finally in a four-part canon. You may wish to make this progression over the four weeks of Advent. Since the harmonic structure is so simple, try adding handbells by assigning A-flat and E-flat chord clusters. You may also have the upper bells play the flute part in octaves. 

For an increasing number of North Americans, the name Taizé evokes a certain style of singing that has become popular in more and more churches, retreat centers, and campus parishes. Taizé is in fact an ecumenical community of brothers located in the small village of that name in the Burgundy region of eastern France.

 

Taizé began with one man, Brother Roger. In 1940 he came to what was then a semi-abandoned village in Burgundy, his mother’s native region. He was twenty-five years old, and he had come there to offer a welcome to Jews fleeing the Nazi persecution and to work out a call to follow Christ in community, a community that would attempt to live out the Gospel call to reconciliation day by day. Today, the Taizé Community is composed of around a hundred brothers. They come from different Christian traditions and from over twenty-five different countries, and make a life commitment to live together in joy, simplicity, and mercy as a “parable of community,” a sign of the Gospel’s call to reconciliation at the heart of the world. Tens of thousands of people, mainly between the ages of 17 and 30, come throughout each year from around the world to spend a week going to the roots of the Christian faith. They join in the community’s worship three times a day, listen to Bible introductions on the sources of the faith, spend time reflecting in silence, and meet in small sharing-groups. The community encourages participants, when they return home, to take back what they have discovered and put it into practice in the concrete conditions of their life – in their parishes, their place of work or study, their families.

 

Life at Taizé, following the monastic tradition, has always turned around three main poles – prayer, work, and hospitality. The three times of worship create the basic rhythm of the day, with a very meditative form of prayer in which singing and silence have always played a large part. When the number of visitors to Taizé began to increase, and more and more young people started arriving, the brothers felt the need to find a way for everyone to join in the prayer and not simply be observers. At the same time, they felt it was essential to maintain the meditative quality of the prayer, to let it be an authentic encounter with the mystery of God revealed in Jesus Christ. Finally, it was found that chants made up of a few words repeated over and over again made possible a prayer that was both meditative and yet accessible to all. They were happy to develop a form of sung music that can be used just as well by a small group of students who meet weekly in a dorm to pray as in a celebration that fills the cathedral of a large city. The “songs of Taizé” thus make it possible for hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world to be linked in common praise of God.

 

With the help of the musician Jacques Berthier, friend of Taizé, different methods were tried out, and a solution was found in the use of repetitive structures, namely, short musical phrases with melodic units that could be readily memorized by everybody. The use of some very simple words in basic Latin to support the music and the theme of prayer was also dictated by pastoral needs. From practical experience it was the only way of solving the unavoidable problem of languages that arouse at international gatherings. On the other hand, living languages are widely used. Increasingly, song collections around the world, Protestant and Catholic, include songs from Taizé for congregational worship.

 

GIA Publications is the North American publisher of the many recordings and song collections from the Community of Taizé.

-from http://www.giamusic.com/bios/taize.cfm