Is your church too noisy before the service starts?

Recently I had an all-too rare but most welcome experience in a church I was visiting, not as the preacher but as a member of the congregation. For about five minutes before the service actually began, there was complete and total silence in the building, broken only by the sound of a few people entering quietly.

It was such a refreshing change from the noise that often precedes worship. I must confess, I get weary of sitting in church, trying to gather my thoughts and hearing people talking loudly about the progress of plants in their greenhouse, the success or otherwise of their favourite football team, the latest antics of their grandchildren or whatever else it might be. I’ve been in church services where the person leading the service has to raise their voice over the hubbub of the congregation and call every-one to order so that worship can begin.

But those moments just before corporate worship begins should, somehow, be ring fenced to help us prepare our hearts to focus on God and not on ourselves and the world around us.

In the Scottish Presbyterian church where I was a student, they followed the old tradition of the Beadle, or Church Officer, carrying the Bible into the church and placing it on the pulpit, before the Minister entered. This was the sign that worship was about to begin, so it’s time to quieten your heart and your voice. It’s a time for quiet prayer and meditation, perhaps reading Scripture.

In the last church I pastored, the way we attempted this was that about five minutes before the service began I, or whoever was leading, would enter and sit on the platform and the musicians would stop playing and then that sent a message to the gathered congregation that this was the time for quiet preparation.

The prophet Habakkuk has God speaking against the noise and clamour of an idol-worshipping world, albeit idols that cannot speak (Hab.2v19). God’s words to His prophet in 2v20 are a reminder of the sovereignty and holiness of God to which the appropriate response of His people is reverential silence and submission: “The LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.”

The temple here is not, of course, the local church building but the heavenly abode of God who sits in transcendent majesty, and as we gather for worship surely there is a principle here that applies to us. We have come to hear the voice of the living God, not primarily the voices of those with whom we gather, precious as Christian fellowship is.

Let’s take just a few minutes to close our ears to the world around us; read through the passage of Scripture that is going to be expounded, reflect on the words of a hymn or song that will help us focus on the God to whom we come and, above all, pray along the lines of: “Speak, Lord, in the stillness, while I wait on Thee; hushed my heart to listen in expectancy” (E. May Grimes).

I remember an old saint saying something like: “Before worship, speak to God; during worship, let God speak to you; after worship speak to others about God.” Which brings me on to something that frustrates me even more than the pre-service cacophony – the post-service conversations; but that will have to wait until next time!