The colour of trust is red

Throughout Geneva, neighbouring France and into the neighbouring Swiss canton of Vaud, many of the local churches have been decorated in red and orange, the colours of the Taizé community's pilgrimage of trust. The pictures above are from this Sunday in the Temple of Ferney Voltaire with Pastors Bernard Millet and Anne Coidan celebrating. Following the service all the participants were invited to a meal at the Roman Catholic Church just 100 metres down the road.
Although the local churches have sometimes found it quite a challenge to respond to the needs of the Taizé meeting, the positive fruits of the effort and prayer can already be seen within and between church communities. Perhaps sometimes in the churches we don't dare enough to go beyond the routine of what we're used to.You can read about some of the preparations here.
We didn't go to Palexpo for the evening service with over 40,000 young people from over 70 countries (unfortunately the colour of my tonsils is also deep red with my fever well in the red too!), but we watched the service on Eurovision. As always with Taizé the music was beautiful and simple with soaring solo counterpoints to the chants. I was also impressed by the brevity of the intercessory prayers - we sometimes try to cram too much theology and preaching into our prayers and forget that they are not lectures but prayers.