Such astonishment and disbelief isn't limited to 'Christian' communities. My church has been pleased to host a couple of gatherings recently attended by folk of various religious traditions and none and I know our Muslim friends from the Chesham Mosque are equally shocked by the evil carried out by organisations such as Islamic State.
How we respond and acknowledge these atrocities in church is a question I never feel properly prepared for. Do we depart from the planned order of service, say something at the beginning of worship or the end? So I was grateful to a couple of members of my congregation for their guidance and contribution last Sunday.
One of our choir members asked if we might just have a moment of silence before the Call to Worship. I'd already prepared a short prayer but hadn't anticipated a shared silence. But we did as suggested and so many people afterwards thanked me for doing something that was, in fact, another person's suggestion. I'm really grateful for that sort of collaboration.
The other helpful 'contribution' came from the person who looks after our display monitors. We have all been so impressed by his wonderful 'creativity' in making upcoming events and notices look so attractive over recent months! Well on Sunday he uploaded the image on this page. On the monitor it is actually an animated candle gently burning with a superimposed image of the Eiffel Tower. As he showed it to me before the service he said - 'I didn't think it needed words'. How true he was. I felt the image was a real gift to our church community - in fact we've displayed it all week so that our user groups can see it to. For me it is both an appropriate gesture of solidarity with our French cousins and a prayer in itself - that God's light will continue to shine through the darkness of tragedy eventually bring hope and new life - a beautiful and heartfelt 'prayer without words'.
Best wishes,
Ian.
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