Some Things to Consider Including in Your Worship – Silence
Our fathers had much to say about stillness, and by stillness they meant the absence of motion or
the absence of noise or both.
They felt that they must be still for at least a part of the day, or that day would be wasted. God
can be known in the tumult of the world if His providence has for the time placed us there, but
He is known best in the silence. So they held, and so the sacred Scriptures declare.
(A.W. Tozer,"God Tells the Man Who Cares)
The Scriptures do insist on the value of silence in worship, but we seem to fear it. A worship
service that is nothing more than an unbroken chain of vocalisations seems like an assault on the
ears, to say nothing of the worshipping heart. True worship requires some silence to think,
confess, respond, admire. Having a human windmill behind the pulpit giving us a play-by-play
of every moment in the service is distracting, to say the least. I’ve written"before on the strange
habit of making worship into a charge from beginning to end.
We might face an opposite error, in our effort to restore some contemplativeness to worship. We
might introduce silence in an arbitrary fashion. Silence in the wrong place is not quietening; it is
merely awkward. Instead of using the silence to contemplate, we might merely contemplate the
silence, and become even more aware of small noises. Instead of directing the gaze of the soul to
God, we might become intensely aware of ourselves, so that we do not break the silence.
Silence should be natural. Sometimes it might be in slightly longer pauses between elements.
Instead of rushing to fill every possible gap with a breezy, chirpy commentary, we might allow a
few moments after a song has been sung before moving on. Sometimes it might be during a
public prayer, in which the speaker addresses God with natural pauses for thought and
admiration, instead of a strange, unpunctuated monologue found nowhere else on earth.
Sometimes it might be allowing the congregation’s restlessness to fade before beginning the call
to worship, or the reading of Scripture. Sometimes, it might be a minute’s silence after a sermon,
to read over the text, pray and make applications, commitments and confessions where
necessary. Perhaps it might be in a moment’s silent prayer before or after the service. However it
is done, we need to give worshipping hearts time to worship, and give restless hearts time to
squirm their way into disciplined silence. From there, perhaps they too will worship.
In fact, silence makes us uncomfortable. We try and fill the emptiness with something, anything
to keep it from being silent. I’ll be the first to admit that I need noise to sleep, because when it is
silent I cannot sleep, so I turn on a fan to block it out – isn’t that odd? What is it about silence
that makes it difficult to relax? I think that it is because we are vulnerable in the midst of silence.
It is in silence, stillness, quietness, and solitude that our soul will emerge from the trees and
make itself known. This is why solitude is so important. Solitude is an opportunity to interrupt
the noise and stimulation of life, and give allow ourselves to be quiet so that we can hear our
loneliness and longing calling us deeper into the only relationship that can satisfy our longing.
The longing for solitude is the longing to find ourselves. The longing for solitude is the longing
for God.
“Solitude is a place. It is a place in time that is set apart for God and God alone, a time when we
unplug and withdraw from the noise of interpersonal interactions, from the noise, busyness and
constant stimulation associated with life in the company of others. Solitude can also be
associated with a physical place that has been set apart for times alone with God, a place that is
not cluttered with work, noise, technology, other relationships, or any of those things that call us
back into doing mode. Most important, solitude is a place inside myself where God’s Spirit and
my spirit dwell together in union. This place within me is private and reserved for the intimacies
that God and I share. What happens between the two of us in that place is not meant for public
consumption. It is a place where I can give myself with abandon to the Lover of my soul,
knowing that I am completely safe from anyone else’s curious gaze or judgmental glance.”
The goal of silence in solitude is to hear and acknowledge our own hearts; to know and take
seriously, what is happening inside of us and rest in that knowledge with God. This is not a time
for problem solving, or action, this is a time of discovery and recognition. It is important to set
aside regular time to step out of the noise and commotion of life and consider how your soul is
faring in the midst of all the hustle and bustle.
When was the last time that you sat in silence, alone, and listened to your own heart? I’d like to
encourage you to give it a try. Find a place that is comfortable[2] to you, where you can relax
and be open and available to God. Take some time to settle in and just breathe deeply. With each
breath, become more aware of God’s presence and your desire to be present with God. This is
called centering-down, and for me it can take a while. My mind doesn’t like to stay centered and
still in the moment, it likes to run miles an hour after all the things that need doing. Take the time
to properly center down, don’t give up or get upset at your wandering thoughts. Be persistent,
keep breathing, and keep relaxing.
Don’t speak. When your mind has gotten quiet, and your body has become still, start to think
about your life and begin to notice what is true about you these days. Take your time, and go
slow. Don’t rush to make something happen. Embrace the silence. Allow your soul to emerge
and say something to you that maybe you have not wanted to admit. Is there an emotion that
needs to be expressed (anger, joy, grief, confusion)? What have you been too busy to notice?
Whatever comes to mind, whatever your soul makes you aware of – don’t try to fix it, just sit
with it for a little bit. Become more aware that God is present with you in this awareness. Barton
says, “Feel the difference between trying to fix it and just being with it. Feel the difference
between doing something with it and resting with it. Feel the difference between trying to fight it
and letting God fight for you. What does it mean for you to be still and let God fight (or work)
for you in this particular area?”[3]
Spend a solid amount of time in solitude, I recommend starting with 30 minutes and a couple
times a week. Allowing your soul to rest in silence and solitude is a blessing that you need to be
experiencing. Take some time and look at the story of Elijah meeting with God in 1 Kings 19:11-
13. God’s voice was not found in the noise, busyness, or chaos – God’s voice came to Elijah in
“sheer silence.”[4] Have you been creating space to hear God in the silence? Or, has your life
been overrun with noise and “to-do” lists? Building a life of worship takes intentionality, it
requires that we set aside our previous patterns and unhealthy tendencies and re-shape and re-
order our lives to more closely reflect the life of Christ. Jesus was never “busy” or “in a hurry.”
His pace of life was so different from many of ours. Use times of Silence and Solitude to filter
out everything that you “have to do” and focus on allowing God to speak to your heart. He will
show you what work you truly need to focus on, and what things you need to let go of. It is time
to learn how to rest.
Within the Holy Place
His priest am I, before Him day and night,
Within His Holy Place;
And death, and life, and all things dark and bright,
I spread before His Face.
Rejoicing with His joy, yet ever still,
For silence is my song;
My work to bend beneath His blessed will,
All day, and all night long—
For ever holding with Him converse sweet,
Yet speechless, for my gladness is complete.
Gerhard Tersteegen (1697-1769)
Some Things to Consider Including in Your Worship – Singing the Psalms
The singing of psalms has all but disappeared from many congregations, unless you count the
“As the Deer” chorus as a singing of a psalm. (Lifting the first line from a psalm and adding
words about your desire to eventually worship generally doesn’t count.) One cannot help feeling
that many congregations treat their hymnal as if it is the New Testament, and the psalter as if it is
the Old: nice, but not really for us.
Psalms by themselves are not adequate for all that New Testament worship aims to be. That is,
much as I respect people who want a strict application of the Regulative Principle, I don’t think
exclusive psalmody is the way to go. Being Old Testament revelation, psalms do not contain all
the Christological themes that we want to consider as New Testament believers. However, mixed
in with “hymns and spiritual songs”(Eph 5:19, Col 3:16), they are an important part of the
worship we ought to offer God.
Why should we return to including psalms in our worship?
1) The psalms were meant to be sung. They are certainly to be studied and taught as the rest of
Scripture, but psalms perhaps do not have their fullest effect until clothed again in melody. The
psalms are songs, and songs which God’s people should sing.
2) Psalms represent the universal experiences of the redeemed. Who has not read a psalm and
found David or Asaph’s heart-cries resonating with his own? The psalms are experts in
experiential theology, experiences of the redeemed shared across dispensations and ages.
3) The psalms are inspired poetry. If we want to view unseen realities properly, there is nothing
better than poetry that it inspired by God. The images chosen by God are specifically selected to
shape the believing imagination.
4) Psalms cover a variety of themes, from celebration, to confession, to expectation, to cries for
deliverance, to wisdom. Therefore, psalms can function as calls to worship, confession before the
Lord’s Supper, preparation before the preached Word, hymns of adoration or thanksgiving,
hymns of promise, or even benedictions.
To this, one might add Doug Wilson’s plea for psalm singing as one of the means for reversing
the feminization of worship that has occurred in the last century. He says,
The fact that the church has largely abandoned the singing of psalms means that the church has
abandoned a songbook that is thoroughly masculine in its lyrics. The writer of most of the
psalms was a warrior, and he knew how to fight the Lord’s enemies in song. With regard to the
music of our psalms and hymns, we must return to a world of vigorous singing, vibrant anthems,
more songs where the tenor carries the melody, open fifths, and glory. Our problem is not that
such songs do not exist; our problem is that we have forgotten them. And in forgetting them, we
are forgetting our boys. Men need to model such singing for their sons. (Future Men, p98)
Of course, no one sings a psalm precisely as originally given. Psalms are first translated from
Hebrew to our mother tongue, and from there a metrical, rhyming and often abridged version is
made. Nevertheless, we are still singing the substance of the psalms.
Where to find them? There is certainly a revival of psalm-singing in some sectors. Some are re-
working the psalms into contemporary metrical tunes. Occasionally, one finds a section of a
psalm that has been put to a pleasant and helpful melody, making it something of a cross
between a psalm and a spiritual song. Some hymnals, include most of the psalms. The Book of
Psalms for Singing, (Crown & Covenant, 1998), has all of the psalms, many of them set to hymn
tunes with which a hymn-singing congregation would be familiar.
Some Things to Consider Including in your Worship – Stand-alone Scripture Readings
In many churches, the Scriptures are read simply before the sermon, or to preface the sermon, as
it were. The Scripture reading becomes merely a bridge between the singing and the preaching. I
grew up in a setting where a separate, stand-alone reading of Scripture was never practiced. I’ve
come to see the tremendous value of this practice, for several reasons.
First, it’s commanded by precept and example. Paul commanded it in 1 Timothy 4:13 and in
Colossians 4:16 and 1 Thessalonians 5:27. It seems John expected the public reading of Scripture
too, judging by Revelation 1:3. Early church practice confirms this.
Second, in giving a specific time to the reading of the Word, we testify to our belief in its
inspired nature and power to convert. The Word is not merely a tool for our use. The Word itself
preaches, when it is read. The Word has intrinsic power. (One member of my church was
converted simply by reading the book of Matthew.)
Third, we revere God’s revelation in our midst when the only sound heard is the Word of God
being publicly read. When the Scriptures are read, we call attention to the God-centredness of
Christian worship. Christian worship is entirely a response to what God has revealed about
Himself. In the act of stand-alone Scripture readings, we become slow to speak, and quick to
listen, so that our worship is a matter of appropriate response, not creative innovation. I have
heard this only anecdotally, but it is said that"at a certain point during corporate worship"in
certain Puritan churches, "a large pulpit Bible would be marched through the center of the church
building, held aloft, while the members all stood in reverence. This is not bibliolatry; this is
revering the fact that God has spoken.
Scripture readings might include the text to be preached on for that day, particularly if it is a
longer portion. If not, it is a good practice to include more than one reading, perhaps from both
Testaments, that deal with a theme similar to that of the text to be preached.
Of late, some helpful"tools have emerged, encouraging a careful and skillful approach to the
public reading of Scripture. The person who reads Scripture should ideally be one who is skilled
at reading and speaking, and is able to communicate the text with the inflections and emphases
appropriate for the genre of literature, and for the subject being addressed. No one is pleased
with a flawless, but colourless reading of Scripture. Likewise, we want a fluency and freedom in
reading that directs our attention to what is being said, without tripping over"how. This might be
natural to some; it is a skill that can learned and improved in most.
