Be Quiet!

I went to the Mission Shaped Church conference yesterday and I will write about that in sue course. But I was more struck, as my journey home was delayed more and more, by a passage from Doug Pagitt's "Reimagining Spiritual formation"; his account of the Solomon's Porch experimental church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (A very interesting book, by the way.)

I get quite upset by the amount of noise at the start of services. I want to be quiet, to prepare myself for an encounter with God. The babble of secular conversations distracts me and I can end up feeling a bit resentful and spiritually superior (I've come here to worship God, you lot have just come to swap trivialities with your friends...). Doug wrote:

"Our Sunday night gatherings officially start at 5:30 pm, so people are sometimes puzzled when the music doesn't start until 5:40. At least once a month someone asks me, "Why do we start late?" I tell them we aren't starting late, we're starting the conversation. And that's important because this conversation is the heart of who we are. Our hope is that the music, the invocation, the prayers, and the sermon that follows will be a continuation of the conversation between us and with God." (p 50)

And I was suddenly convicted that this is right and that I have been wrong. I talk a lot about building community, about worship being a collective rather than individual experience and yet my own thoughts and actions belie my words.

On Sunday I will start the service by sharing this with the congregation. I wonder what response I'll get.