This article appears courtesy of Rev Magazine.

In the Stillness
by Dan Kimball

The church parking lot was so packed that we had to leave our rental car on a patch of trampled grass beside the sanctuary. It was 9:30 p.m., and Compline was just about to start. We’d heard that this service was drawing in lots of younger people, and we wanted to see for ourselves what dynamic speaker or hot new worship team was causing such a stir.

The church was very old and gothic, and we pulled open heavy wooden doors to find about 250 people of all ages gathered inside. No cushioned theater seating here—just hard metal folding chairs. Several people sat on the cold concrete and stone floor. No PowerPoint or video clips captured our attention, and no drama sketch presented the evening’s theme. Instead, the stained glass and architecture of the building spoke of God’s transcendence and holiness. No Delirious? or Matt Redman songs launched us into worship. The entire service consisted of about five or six cantors dressed in robes, singing softly from the front.

As I looked around, I could see that the crowd was mainly college students and teenagers. But when silence fell between songs, I could hear no restless teenager chatting in the back row. Instead, people closed their eyes and sat still. There was no rush, no hurried announcements, no clever transitions carefully thought through by the programming team. On the contrary, the experience was rather slow, silent, and contemplative. No teaching, no preaching, no how to’s. Just quiet worship.

As we spilled out into the dark night with the rest of the crowd, I felt that maybe something was happening here with the emerging culture, and we should take note. We put so much effort into designing contemporary church services that are peppy, upbeat, and cued down to the minute, but I’d just seen a large group of young people drawn to something quite the opposite. Perhaps we should consider that there’s a rising longing to seek God in the simplicity and stillness of a meditative church experience.