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Candlelight contemplative prayer

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Courage

Community Contemplative Prayer returns to Georgetown for another season. From September, 2024 through May, 2025, San Gabriel Presbyterian Church, 5404 Williams Drive, Georgetown, TX will host an open meditative gathering. One Sunday per month at 6:30 pm, the Georgetown Ecumenical Wholeness Service offers a space and time for all to come to pray together. In a candlelit room, on a backdrop of both classical music and Taizé monastic chant, pastors and musicians from churches across Williamson County will lead services focused on healing, intercession, and scripture. Open communion will be served. 

The topical focus for 2024-25 is Courage. Meetings take place on these dates:

Worship Services

September 22            Courage to See
October 27                Courage to Hear
November 24            Courage to Discern
December 15             Courage to Love
January 26                Courage to Suffer
February 23              Courage to Believe
March 23                   Courage to Act
April 27                     Courage to Journey
May 25                      Courage to Serve

Live Streaming is available via our Facebook and YouTube channels
* Except for December, services take place every 4th Sunday

In addition to our regular worship gatherings, we will host two additional events:

August 25                  Taizé Evening Prayers in Salado  
November 1               All Saints’ Observance (Outdoors in the church Columbarium)

Location: 5404 Williams Drive, Georgetown, TX 78633

A Brief History of the Wholeness Service

Founded in the late 1990’s by Dr. George Biggs of First Presbyterian Church, Georgetown, TX, the Wholeness Service began as a small prayer meeting. On a few Sunday evenings at sunset, Biggs invited friends and neighbors to join him in a circle. The group sang hymns and read scripture together. They lit candles to symbolize private prayers. Ordained ministers laid hands on them, praying with them and anointing them with oil; counseling them when requested. The meetings took place every month, following a template that may be found in many Christian books of common worship, and made a significant impact on Biggs’ congregation. Soon, pastors from other area churches joined the leadership circle and the small Service of Healing and Wholeness grew beyond the walls of First Presbyterian Church. Songs and prayers from Taizé, music based on the haunting chants of early Christianity, eventually replaced traditional hymns, adding an extra dimension to the meditative atmosphere. Today, with an updated name and a tradition established over 25 years ago, the Georgetown Ecumenial Wholeness Service welcomes a community-wide congregation, some of the area’s finest musicians, and ministers across both Travis and Williamson counties. 

As we return this year, the Wholeness Service invites everyone, churched and unchurched, to come together and pray. At San Gabriel Presbyterian Church, Georgetown, attendees may sit in an open, well-ventilated space, either with a group or alone, as they sing, pray, or simply listen. Unique among the worship experiences in its community, the Wholeness Service is also unique in the place, or places it calls home. Interdenominational and carefully focused on scripture rather than doctrine, this event may take place in many area buildings. To date, First Presbyterian Church, First United Methodist Church, Wellspring, a United Community of Faith, and San Gabriel Presbyterian Church, all of Georgetown, Texas, have hosted the Wholeness Service. In August, 2024, the service ventured outside of the Georgetown city limits for the first time with a Taizé evening prayer service in the beautiful St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church of Salado, Texas. Many other area churches count themselves as active worship partners. 

Join us for another season

The Wholeness Service likes to say, “All are welcome, all are embraced.” For us, the place may change from season to season, but the mission is the same: pray for each other, pray for the world, and spend a quiet hour with God. We can’t wait to see where God leads us next. Join the Georgetown Ecumenical Wholeness Service for a peaceful season of candlelight, contemplative prayer.