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Originally posted by LutheranChik:
To me part of this has to do with the barrage of noise and information we're subject to in general in contemporary life; people just don't know what to do with silence.

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Originally posted by orfeo:

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Originally posted by LutheranChik:
To me part of this has to do with the barrage of noise and information we're subject to in general in contemporary life; people just don't know what to do with silence.

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Yes, I agree with this. I think people find it very difficult to handle.

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Me too. We're used to thinking of silent moments as "dead air." When I worked in television (master control), I had a coworker who, whenever another switcher was late in taking to the commercial break or back to the program, would say, "We could've sold that time!" He was joking - usually it was 2 seconds max - but my reason for bringing it up is that not only is silence counted as "dead air," it strikes us as time wasted. Time is money, right?

Which is actually a brilliant argument for working silences into the worship. That could be a nice pause before a collect, a pause for reflection after a reading or a sermon, or actually taking the time to clean up properly after Communion (rather than practically tossing everything into a pile on the credence table - dare I suggest, carefully re-folding the corporal?).

As per the OP, I am always suspicious of "explanations" that assume the Church (or any other institution) is conspiring to suppress the people. Sometimes that may be the case, but always snoop around for another reason first.

[ 25. June 2012, 07:36: Message edited by: churchgeek ]
 

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Posted by Nicodemia (# 4756) on :
 
I welcome silence as part of worship/the liturgy. But it is never quite long enough!

I suspect that a period of silence feels a lot longer to the person up front than to the person in the congregation, so that he/she up front rushes to end what seems long enough!
 

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Posted by Snags (# 15351) on :
 
I think there are a number of factors, certainly in the churches I've attended.

a) Time pressure
People expect to have some songs, a reading, notices/fellowship news, a sermon, intercession, offering and often a few other random bits. They also expect the service to start on time and finish at a given time (and in our case the first morning service has to finish more or less on time, because of the second morning service).

If you have to fit all that lot in, and have a culture of "leading from the front" then there's a constant push for the leader to get on to the next thing, particularly if the sermon's at the end, because you don't want to get the preacher bitching that they had to cut their sermon short because you "over-ran".

b) Lack of familiarity
As someone else has said, a lot of people don't know what to do with silence, because it's so not a part of our normal experience

c) Lack of 'trust'
After years of "And now I'll just leave a time of silence for you to add your prayers [1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 4 ... 5 ...] Now let's sing ..." (or even worse, the person who spends 10 minutes telling you there'll be a time of silence which then lasts for 15 seconds). So when people tell you there's going to be silence, you're not sure you'll get to use it even if you want to.

d) Inherent lack of feedback
When you're leading, it can be really hard to judge whether a period of silence is 'working' or whether people are thinking "Oh, please, let's move on". And, as someone else has said up thread, 10 seconds seems like eternity to the person at the front. It takes a lot of courage to introduce even a genuine 30 seconds, let alone 2-5, or 5-10 minutes silence into a service where the congregation aren't used to it.


We're consciously trying to use silence* more in some of our services. There's one a month where it's expected, and it's creeping in to a few more. So far (over a year or two) we've had a lot of positive feedback and nothing negative.

The one thing I do when 'leading silence' is to use my watch and absolutely force myself to give at least 2 minutes, by the watch, not by 'gut feel'. Because gut feel will have you bailing out after 15 seconds And I'll try to build in multiple pauses and silent moments across the service (although the longest we've gone was about 15-20 minutes during a 'prayer stations' thing that required people to move, reflect and pray in a self-directed fashion). I love it, but find it very stressful leading it!


*Or at least "non-led" periods, as there may sometimes be music or the opportunity for activity in those periods, but by no means always
 

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Posted by dv (# 15714) on :
 
As a meditator who has come back to the Anglicanism after decades away in a different spiritual tradition I've been amazed at how little silence there is even on Christian retreats and "Quiet Days". I know there's a lot to be said for The Word but maybe not so much for wordy jabber that infects even supposedly designated quiet time. The chief perpetrator is often the priest or retreat leader. What are people scared of? Loss of control/status? Actually hearing God?
 

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Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
Some good comments here. I've always noticed how the 'now a period of silence for your own prayers' is cut to about 2 seconds!

People are supposed to find silence embarrassing; I'm not sure about that. I do Zen meditation, where we simply have a silence rule for the whole session, and everybody seems very relaxed about it. In fact, it's a huge relief.

I think church is often a busy place, and silence fits in awkwardly, but it can be done, if there is a will to do it.

Sometimes in the Eucharist, there seem to be natural periods of stillness, a kind of unplanned silence, and I value these a lot.
 

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Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :
 
I love silence and have been known to build a lot in when I've been leading services*, but it's very difficult, even when reading the offices†, any pause someone else jumps into.

And I've led intercessions with a short bidding sentence (and I mean short - 5-10 words) and 30s timed silence. They were universally loathed.

* this hasn't been happening for the last 6 months to a year.
† Morning and Evening prayer, which are based on the Franciscan services which have a lot of silence as part of their structure
 

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Posted by Selmo (# 14632) on :
 
Last night I took part in an evening service where the Minister spoke about the need for quietness and silence.
As his text, he took a line from Psalm 62: For God alone my soul waits in silence;(NRSV).

No period of silence during that service lasted for more than 3 seconds.

On the whole, Methodists are good at singing and talking. Silence, at least in corporate worship, seems to be beyond us.
 

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Posted by Rosa Winkel (# 11424) on :
 
Outside of Quaker Meetings the best silence I've encountered was in Birkenau. I went there in 2005 and was there for the first time, and we sat on the steps by where one of the crematoriums/gas chambers was, and someone read a text from a survivor and we fell into silence afterwards for a few minutes.

This year I led a trip there and a girl spoke by one of the barracks where her grandmother had been (and survived). After she spoke we fell into silence, and it felt real. Later through my organising a text was read, again on the steps and I had told the group the day before that we would have a short period of silence. After a while I heard whispering behind me and a few footsteps, so I thought everyone was done so stood up and walked away. (I didn't want to force a silence.) No-one came with me. The great majority stayed there for about five minutes.

While church services are not visits to Birkenau, they are times when we encounter something deep, something beyond words, whether that thing is God, our emotions individually or our understanding of ourselves as a group. I was once part of an ecumenical group producing a service for Holy Friday, and wanted silence, but this was argued away by all the others, who said that people wouldn't like it.

Sometimes there's a strong need to be confident in what we believe to be good, even in the face of opposition. Talk that "people won't like it" is defeatism.

In normal life, as has been said, we need to have personal stereos, music in the car and the such. We run from silence, I believe, as it confronts us with so much, including with ourselves.

Saying that, I ran a Taize prayer once in a college chapel, where we had a lot of silence (as well as darkness lit with candles, icons as well) and a girl (used to charismatic worship) told me afterwards that the service was "scary". To be fair, I hadn't explained why we would have silence before the prayer. Of course, one cannot legislate for what happens during the silence, but some kind of explanation combined with confidence can achieve a lot.

Sometimes now when I do seminars I try to incorporate silence occasionally, and you can always bet that some people will start giggling.
 

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Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 

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Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
But most church services are based on filling all the available time with words, songs and actions. It is seen as extremely anxiety-making to have a silent time in a service. Why?

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Originally posted by orfeo:

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Originally posted by LutheranChik:
To me part of this has to do with the barrage of noise and information we're subject to in general in contemporary life; people just don't know what to do with silence.

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Yes, I agree with this. I think people find it very difficult to handle.

My old church did manage it sometimes. But one of the times they would utterly FAIL to do it was during Communion. As people had had their Communion, they would gradually start chatting with each other, meaning that the people at the very end would be approaching with a great deal of background noise behind them, whereas the early people would have peace and quiet while they were at the rail.

The best solution we had was actually music, but it had to be the right kind of music. Quiet, contemplative and holding people's attention. No, it wasn't silence. It was the next best thing though.

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We've tried the music, people just used it to cover up their talking. In one case the organist, in an effort to cover up the sound of talking played louder and louder!!

We tried hymns and people sung along to them - loudly, not quietly or prayerfully.

What really annoys me is that the adults who talk, are often the ones who complain about children making noises. The honestly don't see thier talking as noise that might disturb or the hypocrisy about complaining about others.
 

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Posted by sabine (# 3861) on :
 
An Episcopal Priest I know once told me that in seminary she was told that moments of silence should be about the length of the Lord's Prayer, and that is what she does.

But I tried this once as a prayer leader in a setting with several RCs and about the time I arrived at hallowed be thy name in my mind, one of the RCs said "Amen! in a loud voice and everyone went on as if the silent prayer time had been concluded.

I sometimes attend a Mennonite Church where silent time is built in. We have a running joke that their long silence feels like a nano-second to me. But it works for them. They also insert moments of silence between each prayer petition, giving the congregation a chance to say their own inward prayer as well as listen to what the pastor has to say about the petition. I think that works quite well for them.

Liturgy styles may well be similar to linguistic/conversational styles. I learned my language skills in the New York City/New Jersey area where overlapping talk and frequent interruptions are not only a way of life, but expected. Too much silence in a conversation might signal the end of the conversation--or, at the very least, an indication that there isn't much left to communicate.

I don't know if people carry such underlying assumptions into liturgy, but it seems to me that if a person is used to liturgy carrying the weight of worship, an unscripted break could be disconcerting, a bit like watching a strand of the support rope pop.

sabine

[ 25. June 2012, 12:53: Message edited by: sabine ]
 

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Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
I think that if you're used to a church that fills the silences (like, let's have the band play after communion! Hurray!) you become really poor at it.

I once, in my old church, led a housegroup meeting that ended with ten minutes' silence. This was ended unceremoniously by the housegroup leader who interjected halfway in with "Wow! Silence is brilliant, isn't it?"

We never, ever let him forget it.
 

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Posted by Moo (# 107) on :
 
At my church we have a silence that lasts at least a minute after each Bible reading, after the psalm, and after the sermon.

It's a useful reminder that each separate part has its own significance.

Moo
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 

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Originally posted by Zacchaeus:
We've tried the music, people just used it to cover up their talking. In one case the organist, in an effort to cover up the sound of talking played louder and louder!!

We tried hymns and people sung along to them - loudly, not quietly or prayerfully.

What really annoys me is that the adults who talk, are often the ones who complain about children making noises. The honestly don't see thier talking as noise that might disturb or the hypocrisy about complaining about others.

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Yup. Been there with all of that.

You basically need... um... a magnetic solo. I don't want to blow my own trumpet too much, but... okay, yes I do. Not many people seemed to be able to do it in my church, but somehow I could. I think I learnt it from Beethoven, or from reading about Beethoven slow movements, and how the silences are just as important as the notes.

I wouldn't play in communion the same way as I would play when leading people in song - because I didn't want them to sing! A lot fewer notes, a lot more space in between the key notes that outlined the harmony (and melody, although often I would fragment that somewhat). If I sang, I would do it without the microphone that was used the rest of the time. The idea being that it was very 'inward' music.

I doubt you could do it on an organ, frankly. Organs are not 'inward' instruments. Piano is my thing. You could probably manage it on guitar as well.

PS Another tactic for stopping 'em from singing along is using unfamiliar songs. There was actually a song that I picked up from another church that I used in communion probably half a dozen times, without ever adding it to any other part of a service.
 

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Posted by Zacchaeus (# 14454) on :
 
Sadly orfeo - so far stopping them singing means allowing them talking!!
 

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Posted by Rosa Winkel (# 11424) on :
 
An old choir master of mine once played a piece during the communion that had lots of short breaks of silence towards the end. It shut people up.
 

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Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 
I've had the experience where a minister announced a time of silence for private prayer... and then he proceeded to talk verrrry slowwwwly right through it! I was waiting for the silence to start, then realised we should've been praying during that bit where the tempo dropped!

If it's so hard to be silent, then perhaps we should do what the Pentecostals do, when they get everyone to pray their personal prayers aloud. The personal becomes corporate, and the corporate becomes personal. And if you want to you can block everyone else out and be quietly reflective on your own, without the expectation that you're paying close attention to anyone else.
 

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Posted by Aravis (# 13824) on :
 
I'd written a sermon a few months ago on listening to God, and it occurred to me the night before that we never actually gave the congregation the opportunity to do any listening to God, in silence, in church. So I told them this at the start of the sermon slot, spoke for a couple of minutes on the value of listening, then explained a few possible ways of using the time and directing your thoughts. Then I announced a five minute silence (easier if people know exactly how long to expect).
Generally it went down well - most people commented on the way out; some said it had been a really valuable experience and they'd try to make more time for meditation during the week, other said it didn't work for them and they needed words, but they were all quite happy with this as an experiment.
This is a chatty, family-based congregation used to a chatty, family-oriented vicar (not me, BTW, I'm the lay reader and preach there about once a month) so I was relieved they were all so positive! Really clear expectations and time scales helped a lot.
 

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Posted by churchgeek (# 5557) on :
 

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Originally posted by Snags:
And, as someone else has said up thread, 10 seconds seems like eternity to the person at the front.

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Originally posted by churchgeek:
One of the benefits of silence in worship, I think (as I alluded to above in my first post here), is that silence, in our culture, is useless or wasteful. It's commonly pointed out that beauty is also useless. (Remember that useless ≠ valueless.)

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Originally posted by Og, King of Bashan:
At least at my place, silence get a place during Holy Week. Tenebrae has a conspicuous silence before the loud sound. The opening of the Good Friday service, and the death of Jesus, are both marked with silence. The first two acts of the triduum find us leaving the church in silence, reminding us that the liturgy really isn't over. It isn't so much a meditative silence. It is a mark of something different and profound happening, to which we do not have a proper response.

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Originally posted by Chorister:

We used to have no organ during the administration, to let people partake in silence. That was considered too gloomy, so now we have organ music,

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Silence more gloomy than organ music? Your experience of organists is clearly different from mine.
 

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Posted by OhSimone (# 16414) on :
 
A lot of Brethren churches formed out of ex-Quakers, and that's carried into "breaking of bread" and prayer meetings particularly - silences of several minutes are not unusual. I appreciate it: it's space to organise your own thoughts and express them in your own way.

It occasionally lapses into awkward - although the free(ish)-for-all worship is similar to Quaker principles, we're not quite as accustomed to the silence as they are; if no-one were to contribute anything for 10 minutes there might be some nervous coughs and expectant looks.
 

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Posted by bib (# 13074) on :
 
We always have several minutes of silence after the sermon and also include silences after each prayer petition. This seems to work quite well and was put in place after a congregational meeting when several members requested that we institute periods of silence.
 

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Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
I suspect that one problem may be the use of silence as punishment in schools - and think of that with reference to children's sense of time, in which a couple of minutes can seem like ages when you want to go out to play. (While being very brief for the sanction imposing teacher.) The memory of that may not be encouraging when met in a worship setting.
 

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Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :
 
So much discussion about worship seems to imply that what goes on in church ought to be familiar and comfortable, and relate to the way we live our lives in general. So the Gospel ceases to challenge and confront and is bowdlerised into some sort of soothing syrup.

If silence comes with unfortunate connotations then it's not surprising it is resisted. If we are left alone in the presence of the Living God we'll be scared out of our wits, so it's no wonder we want to escape the silence by chatting to our neighbours, or listening to someone telling us what to think. Or even more ironically, singing songs like 'be still for the presence of the Lord' (which is wonderful, as long as we do what it says)

Too many clergy and church 'leaders' are frightened of scaring people by letting them be exposed to the presence of God. Or maybe they are afraid that God will speak more sense than they do.
 

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Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
One of the most moving experiences of the year (perhaps in part because it is so unusual) is the 2 minute silence during the Remembrance Day service. Many people turn up who are not normally used to coming to church services, including children of all ages, and yet it works so well.

Another special time is at the end of Compline, when everyone leaves the church in silence at the end of the service, and (presumably) goes straight home to bed.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Compline is great. I've only ever come across it in a residential or collegial setting.

I've heard of parishes that do it but none of them are anywhere near me ...
 

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Posted by Morlader (# 16040) on :
 
In Truro Cathedral there is a one minute silence ("timed by the conductor" according to the instructions for visiting choirs) after the lessons at choral evensong. Visitors (not in a visiting choir ) can get a bit uneasy and look around to see what is going on and holding things up. It gets a bit too much (of a good thing) at carol services, so the silences are shortened a bit then.

Re compline: when I used to train young men whose voices were changing, we (just those young men and me) used to sing compline after Friday choir practice in Advent and Lent. If a cleric came, we opened the church doors, but if not, the doors were left locked, so not "public worship". It made the budding altos, tenors and basses feel they were doing something uniquely theirs. And singing plainsong softly - yes, with lots of silences - is good for changing voices.
Commended on several fronts.
 

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Posted by wilson (# 37) on :
 
No doubt silence can be a helpful part of worship but I think there's a danger in over-spiritualizing it. Silence comes easier to some because of their personality, just as "enthusiasm" does to others.
 

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Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
One of the most moving silences I have experienced was in Nottingham, the week after Hillsborough, as the crowd remembered the dead. It could have gone on much longer than the prescribed two minutes.
 

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Posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe (# 5521) on :
 

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Originally posted by Og, King of Bashan:
Tenebrae has a conspicuous silence before the loud sound.

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