I was recently pointed to an interview with Jeff Johnson, discussing “Selah services”; a quieter, more contemplative style of worship service that incorporates music, reading, prayer, and extended silence. I am intrigued.

“I personally prefer this kind of worship since it tends to be less centered on those who are leading and requires a very tangible response from within our minds and hearts. My observation is that much of our contemporary forms of worship today, while very celebratory and inspirational, treats the congregation more as observers rather than participants.”

Good stuff. Something we need to consider in our services.

A semi-related thought I had was this:

I often feel the necessity to “hurry” to get as much in as possible during our limited music time. Also, the routine of 5-6 songs with an offering in the middle feels a bit limiting sometimes. Perhaps this is just because I don’t give enough though to that piece of the service, and what we have is instead a reflection of the rest of my life… hurried… pushed to produce on a limited time frame… I do try, though, to bring some sense of direction or flow to the string of songs. I try to think about where the songs are “going”.

I also feel this within an individual song as well… “hurrying” to move through it and get it over with and on to the next one. I have also heard the sentiment expressed that we should make songs last too long, and I’ve heard remarks on the “9 minute version” of songs on worship recordings as being ridiculously long. Why is that?

Again, the sense of hurry… something probably derived from our pop-music performance mindset. Why can’t we linger on a single song for 10 minutes? What is the problem with that? If it gets boring, that is either our fault for not moving the song in a direction, the listener’s fault for not engaging with the music beyond a surfacy “consumer” level… I don’t think it is the fault of the song being 10 minutes long.

We are far too hurried. Does anyone else have this experience?