Editor’s note: This article is directly related to Kristine Carlson’s main feature, “After the Sun Has Set.”

At a previous congregation where I served, our Wednesday evening confirmation program ended once a month with a worship service of Prayer Around the Cross. Confirmation was from 6:00–7:30 p.m. We held this worship service from 7:10–7:30 p.m. for both the confirmands and their mentors. We also invited the parents of confirmands to come early and join us for worship. An invitation was also extended to the rest of the congregation to come and pray around the cross.

Each month, a different confirmation mentor group was in charge of the service. I worked with them to choose readings and prepare the liturgy. The confirmands and their mentor set up the worship space each month: got out the sand boxes to shape a cross at the front of the sanctuary; set up the taper candles and pillar candles; lit the pillar candles; and welcomed all who came.

Everyone entered in silence and in the dark, except for the pillar candles glowing with light. Our church musician for the youth music program introduced a Taize chant that we sang over and over. Then several confirmands read the selected Scripture passages. And then one of the confirmands gave the invitation to all to come to the cross, to kneel in silence and pray, and light a candle. Periodically, we would again sing the Taize chant. People were free to leave at 7:30 p.m. or stay as long as they wanted around the cross, in silence, and in the dark.

It was amazing to me to see 60 or 70-plus middle school and high school kids be silent together for 20 minutes! There was, of course, some wiggling and jockeying around, especially early on. But the kids came to love this worship and pretty much created a culture among themselves of silence. It was awesome to experience.

In addition, I witnessed, a number of times, moving moments of reconciliation around that cross: of kids who weren’t getting along with each other; and, particularly, of parents and kids whose stories of troubled and even estranged relationships I knew well. Parents would come to this worship service, join their child at the cross, and in the silence and the candlelight, there was healing.

Kristine Carlson is lead pastor at Christ Church Lutheran in Minneapolis, Minnesota.