Sound Of Silence In Worship Leading!

By Author: Darin Browne
Total Articles: 13
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As worship leaders we are very often afraid of silence when we are worship leading. We think it is dead air, we feel awkward and we don't know how long it should last, if it should be there at all, and how we come out of a period of contemplative silence in worship leading. The old song says, Silence Is Golden, but sometimes it's not. Sometimes it is just plain yellow!

This morning in church as I was worship leading we were worshiping around the song Amazing Love, and it started to settle down towards the end of the song, eventually petering away to silence. I could sense the presence of the Spirit right there, and the silence lasted for about 10 seconds. Then I began to reprise the song, and as the people joined me, there was a huge surge of Spirit power, and I was amazed at how the rest of the service (including the sermon and ministry time) exploded from that point.

Yet as I tour around the world, I see again and again worship leaders who are terrified of silence! A period of contemplative silence can be amazingly powerful in worship, yet whenever a gap appears most worship leaders want to fill ...
... it up with something a prayer, a scripture, an anecdote or story.

So, worship leaders, I challenge you to allow silence to enter your worship leading. My advice would be that this should usually come at the end of a quite worship song, and that you must not prolong it (maybe 5-10 seconds), because long silences can become very awkward for the audience.

Then to relaunch the music, why not try strumming one chord and then start singing with just your voice, slowly, deliberately, with real feeling and with long pauses between phrases.

If you try this in your worship leading, you may find that the sounds of silence may in fact be the sound of the Spirit talking to hearts. Why not give it a try, because if silence can serve to lead people into a greater presence of the Lord it is definitely worth pursuing. Let's make silence golden in our worship leading, not plain yellow!
Darin is a worship leader and gospel singer who loves to share his experience and knowledge to help others lead worship more effectively at Worship-Leading.com