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Singing good night to God

Christ Church's candlelight Compline Service, or night prayer, offers

'a spiritual massage' for the faithful.

Melanie Simón                                                                                                                                  Saturday, June 18, 2005
For the Savannah Morning News

Every Sunday night, a small, eclectic congregation calls upon the ancient practices of monks to say good night to God and seek protection for the night to come.

Christ Church, the Mother Church of Georgia c. 1733 , recently began a 30-minute candlelight Compline Service, or night prayer, which consists of Gregorian chants dotted with psalms, short scripture passages, an office hymn, a canticle (Nunc Dimittis), a litany, collects, and additional prayers.

"There is a mysticism to this service," said Mark K. Williams, the organist and choirmaster of Christ Church.

The downtown Savannah Episcopal church started the service in the Spring of 2005. Williams refers to it as "a spiritual massage."

The service begins at 9 p.m. with only four candles lighting the nave, or central part of the church. A robed choir of twelve quietly enters the room. Silhouettes float by and make their way to the balcony that rests above the church pews. The voices from above chant creating surround sound as if to tuck the congregation into bed. The service begins, "The Lord Almighty grant us a quiet night and a perfect end."                                                                                         

At the end of the service, the choir members descend from the balcony. Only faint footsteps pass so as not to disrupt the peace that has washed over the church.

"We've been doing it because it's beautiful and it has a lot of spiritual history and depth," Williams said.

For more than 1,500 years, monks have ended their days with this brief yet powerful devotional that is more about self-exploration than outward means of worship. Silence and time for interior reflection are often identified as the most powerful and moving characteristics of the Compline service.

The Office of Compline originated and developed in southern Europe and the Middle East during the first 600 years of Christianity. The ritual was for centuries practiced only by monks whose days are traditionally made up of six devotionals conducted every three hours - Prime (6 a.m.), Terce (9 a.m.), Sext (noon), None (3 p.m.), Vespers (6 p.m.) and Compline (9 p.m.).

St. Benedict, the founder of western monasticism, ordered that after Compline "no one shall be allowed to say anything from that time on." Compline remains, even today, the last sound of a monk's day.

As Christianity blossomed across Europe and the Mediterranean, Compline began to enter into the common religious services. By the 16th century, the writings and songs of Compline were offered in books available for the masses.

However, Compline remains a relatively unknown type of worship in the United States, with only about 10 churches across the country offering the service.

St. Mark's Cathedral in Seattle began the ancient practice in 1954. The Cathedral’s Compline congregation grew to attract large and diverse crowds and today has a following of more than 100,000 who listen to its weekly radio broadcast.  Christ Church's service currently attracts about 60 to 120 people each week.

Williams said the meditative nature of the service offers reassurance in the midst of an increasingly chaotic world that is.

Katie Linton, a junior at Furman University in Greenville, S.C., regularly attends                            Compline after participating in a 7 p.m. service offered by Savannah Christian Church at the Savannah Theatre on Chippewa Square. She, along with several of her fellow congregation members from the earlier service, make the short trek to Christ Church to attend Compline at the end of the evening.

"I think it's a lost form of worship," Linton said. "I love the solemnity of it."

Linton said the Savannah Christian service she attends involves "lots of clapping and lots of singing," which she enthusiastically responds to, but she enjoys the diversity between the two, distinct experiences. "I really love to be engaged in completely different services," said Linton. "And the singing (at Compline) is so beautiful."

Williams was blown away many years ago after he, at the suggestion of a friend, attended his first Compline service at St. Mark's Cathedral in 1983. He had just moved to Seattle from Houston, and while he had been involved with various churches since his high school days, he had never experienced anything quite like Compline.

That first Sunday night service forever changed him as he walked into a room filled with 800 or so people who flooded the aisles. Some were even reclined on the floor. In complete silence, "the choir entered the room, began singing, and I wept," said Williams.

Not usually one so easily moved to tears, Williams knew that this was something very special.

"There is a deep spirituality to it. I said right then and there, I have to do that. And I met with the choirmaster and joined the choir."

Williams remained in Seattle for six years, until Compline firmly "got in his bones." He then went to Houston and served for nine years as the director of music for the University Presbyterian Church at Rice University. During his third year there, Williams woke up in the middle of the night, like a lightening bolt, with what he interpreted as "a word from God" telling him to start a Compline service right there in Houston, he said.

The Compline choir consists of 12 singers with three members each in the soprano, alto/countertenor, tenor and bass sections. Williams recruited for all 12 spots within four hours. The service he started in 1991 still goes strong today.         

This is Williams' eighth year at Christ Church, yet it wasn't until a few months ago that he felt the calling to begin the arduous and loving task of putting together another Compline choir.

The commitment to long hours and training the singers to "chant and chant well" equals serious dedication. In fact, Williams wouldn't agree to do it without the blessing of his wife, Tina Zenker Williams, who holds her masters in vocal performance from Peabody Institute and GSU and is the cantor for the choir.

Williams, with his own modern twist, has changed the traditionally all-male service to be multi-generational with men and women, which he feels more accurately represents today's culture. He recruited people from all over the city to form the choir, an ecumenical choir made up of members of Christ Church's congregation, Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, and even Greek Orthodox singers, as well as high school students who come from Savannah Performing Arts Academy and Savannah Christian Preparatory School.

Like his predecessors at St. Mark's, Williams would love to some day follow suit with a broadcast of the Compline service to soothe local souls before they drift to sleep.

But, for now, Williams will embrace and promote Compline's most gracious attributes, which are its openness and acceptance. ■

CHURCH INFORMATION:

Information about the choir, the Service of Compline, choir auditions, and the history and ministries of Christ Church  can be found at (www.christchurchsavannah.org) or by calling the church at 912-232-4131.

Day services at the church are Wednesdays at noon in the Chapel and Sundays at 8:00a.m. and 10:30a.m.  in the church nave.  The church is open for tours from 10:00a.m. until 3:00p.m on Wednesdays and Fridays.  Offices for the parish are located at 18 Abercorn Street one block east of the church on Reynold’s Square.  Christ Church is a lively and highly active downtown historic parish which is Biblically-centered, family-oriented, with traditional values.  We are glad that you are here and hope to see you again.  Peace.