Could you get away with a completely silent sermon? Perhaps an introductory thought, a closing prayer, and in the middle,
nothing.
Perfect reflective calm.
How long before everyone got bored?
Could it last ten minutes?
Twenty?
Perhaps this is something better suited to a smaller group.
I'll save this for a week when the sermon is lacking in the word count...
Oooh, Spot - have been thinking about this a lot, recently. Am minded of Francis of Assisi's 'preach the gospel at all times, if necessary use words'.
ReplyDeleteIt depends on the context and the congregation and how you set it up/ introduce it.
There's a congregation I know who would quite happily hunker down into the silence and ponder and pray and be.
My home congregation would not cope with it at all - some have been known to chat through the intimations, prayers, and during the distribution of the elements at the Lord's Supper. With time and lots of ongoing explanation of why silence is good, they would get there, but at the moment, don't even notice when silence should be observed.
Taize-style worship certainly has a nice in-built space for potential silence... it's a gentle way in, perhaps.
You know, I think a small well set up silence would work at Hillside. I sometimes think silence isn't used effectively enough or introduced properly and that makes people uncomfortable. So long as they were prepared for it and knew how long it would be, I think most congregations would appreciate it occasionally.
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