Southeast Texas Lent Youth Idea 4: Taize

Lent in Southeast Texas

Ideas for Golden Triangle Youth Groups. Part 4 -Taize.

We’re back with Part 4 of our SETX Church Guide Ideas for Southeast Texas Youth During Lent.

Part 1 was Fasting. This could be fasting rom food or other items popular with today’s Southeast Texas youth: television, video games, texting, gossiping, etc.

Part 2 was Prayer and Reading Bible Passages. Youth were encouraged to choose meaningful or simple passages and feel free to read them over and over- no need to get all of the meaning out of the first reading. Southeast Texas youth were also encouraged to pray for God to help them select passages that he had prepared for their hearts and to pray for a deeper understanding of the passages. Parents were encouraged to get involved and not rely entirely on our youth pastors – messages this important should begin at home.

Part 3 was Labyrinth – a pattern to walk and turn in a way that opens the mind to meditation and prayer. We pointed readers to a labyrinth built by First Christian Church in Beaumont and encouraged other Southeast Texas churches with labyrinths they’d be open to sharing with Southeast Texas youth groups to share their information on our SETX Church Guide Facebook page.

Part 4 is Taize.

Taize is again a tool you can use to help your Southeast Texas youth group slow their mind and get outside of their “faster is better” mentality that we instill in them in school, hobbies, and athletics.

The Taizé Community is a monastic order in Taizé, Saône-et-Loire, Burgundy, France.

Taize is composed of about 100 brothers who come from Protestant, Eastern Orthodox and Catholic traditions.

That is a really nice feature to those of us here at SETX Church Guide – it is our mission to help foster a true Southeast Texas Christian community, so examples of Christian churches working together like Taize are heartwarming for us.

It’s nice when we get beyond our “Baptist”, “Catholic”, “Methodist”, “Assemblies of God” labels to our most important label – Christian.

The Taize brotherhood sets a nice example for those of us in the Southeast Texas Christian community.

The Taize brothers come from about 30 countries across the world. The monastic order has a strong devotion to peace and justice through prayer and meditation.

It is this Taize meditation that we think could benefit your Southeast Texas youth groups during Lent.

The Taize meditation is led by chants that are repeated with varying layers of harmonies overlapping.

We said it before during Part 1 of our Southeast Texas Youth Lent Ideas series on fasting – it is intriguing how similar some traditions are across cultures. In the Judeo Christian traditions there is a long history of chanting and rhythmic prayer. There are similar traditions in Hinduism, Buddhims, and Jainism.

The Taize chorus’ will be easy for Southeast Texas youth groups to learn and sing.

Much like in Part 3 of our Southeast Texas Youth Lent ideas on Christian labyrinths, the repetitive nature of the music leaves the brain relaxed and focused.

Help your SETX youth fight the urge to get bored with the song – in our youth culture there is a tendancy to