larry
From St Bernard's, Belfast
What role does silence and meditation play in your church? Do you feel awkward when encouraged to be quiet, either alone or in corporate settings?
Does it still have a place in modern life? Should we uphold it to new members and younger folks as a valid way of making oneself present to Jesus?
Are you scared of stripping away all the stimuli from your services: what would really happen if your music faded?
I played a song today (well the laptop did) and I asked the congregation to just listen.
Not quite the same as silence but still unusual in my setting... had a profound effect as it was during communion and really made people focus on the lyrics and on God.
I'm going to contemplate this ;)
I think that silence, meditation and comtemplation does have a place during congregational worship.
But I also think it may be some thing that needs to be almost taught to the congregation! There aren't many times where people just stop everything and sit in silence! So we can't really expect people to all of a sudden be comfortable when we do stop everything, and be able to comtemplate what they've just been singing or have heard!
Just my thoughts!
I suppose we can teach by gradually easing people into the practice of silence and listening in our prayer.
Perhaps, like Pauline, it needs a stimulus first and then a reflection (like the Lectio Divina approach to Scripture reading) - a kind of call and response approach. It can be frustrating if not all people can engage in it to the same level - but that is part of the growth found in it too - can you cope with minor distractions and background noise, even including them as part of your prayer and then return to a place of meditative listening for God?
We teach a lot of things to the assembled people - preaching, new hymns, theology, why not peace and calm in the corporate setting as well as the privacy of someone's "sacred space" at home or out in the great outdoors?
The idea of comfort being constantly necessary for people - is that essential for our prayer-life, doesn't God like to shake us up a little every now and again, iron against iron etc.?
Having time to digest the content of a worship song immediately after or before it is sung as praise or adoration may just amplify the whole offering from a more heartfelt and fully understood position perhaps... could be a way of introducing a more reflective approach to worship!
Thoughts?
Matt said...
'Having time to digest the content of a worship song immediately after or before it is sung as praise or adoration may just amplify the whole offering from a more heartfelt and fully understood position perhaps... could be a way of introducing a more reflective approach to worship! Thoughts?'
This approach is how we have introduced worship into our youth meetings. I ask the Young People (aged 13 - 19) to read through the song. Ask the person who requested it why they asked for it and then start a short discussion. Q. What does this song's lyrics reveal to us about God. Q. What response 'should' we make to it? Q. Can you sing it and mean it? IF not do you need to ask God to help you mean it etc....
THEN we actually sing it.
The emphasis was that worship isnt singing nice songs that we enjoy! Do we actually understand what we are singing etc?
This approach has worked well in this particular setting.
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Ironic or fitting that this was met with silence?!!
*wee bump*
well, waddaya think?
Christus.
Cras, hodie, semperque.
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