Visual Silence...ISN'T

I spent the week before last at the Echo Conference in Dallas, TX and had the opportunity to hang out with some of the Visual Worship tribe. There's a term that gets used frequently in this community that's bothered me ever since the first time I heard it.

It's VISUAL SILENCE.

Visual Silence is described as a time during our worship services where we take a "visual break" by scaling back the lighting and visual media that we use.
A dark room.
Black screens.
A moment of "silence" visually.

The problem I have with this term is that I don't think there is such a thing as being "silent" visually.

At first when I started processing my struggle with the term, I told myself I was only approaching it from a semantics angle. But the more I thought about it (and prayed about it), I realized that I wasn't. I think that sometimes a dark room or a black screen says as much or more than any colored light or motion background we could use.

In other words, it speaks.

It's NOT silent.

An audio guy once said to me that there is nothing more important than audio because "you can still hear in a pitch black room." It's true. You can.

But, if you're anything like me, sounds conjure up visual images in your mind. Your imagination is NEVER silent. Even while you sleep.

A few weeks ago, I was in Arkansas and I visited the Mystic Caverns. It's a pair of beautiful caves in the northwest of the state. There were a couple of times during the tour when the guide asked "Do you want to see what 'cave dark' looks like?" and she turned off all the lights. It was so dark! Like no darkness I've ever experienced before. I literally couldn't see my hand in front of my face.

But in that darkness, I could hear, smell and feel the environment around me and all of those other senses immediately made images of the cave (or what might be lurking inside it) pop into my head. Definitely not visually silent. And the images in my head may or may not have been accurate.
But they were mine.
And they were there.
In that darkness.

I believe that even if we put the congregation in total darkness, we aren't being silent visually. We may be speaking VOLUMES. And while we may have an contextual reason behind stripping the color, blacking out the screens and bringing down the house lights, we have no idea what images our content may stir in the imaginations of the people we serve. Our worship tells a story and we have to be careful how we tell that story.

We also have to be careful of what I call the "Ta Da!" factor. When we take these visual breaks, it has to happen in an almost imperceptible manner. The last thing we want is for people to say "Oh, did you see what they did there? Black room...I get it."
It should be experienced, but not noticed.

Now don't get me wrong. I think there are very good reasons to use less color, less motion and less light. But,  it has to be done subtly and intentionally in context of the story we're telling. We can't just throw the switch because it's cool and we can't make drastic changes from our normal practices and slam the congregation in the face.

I get really nervous when I hear churches say they are going to shut everything down for a season, but they don't really have a reason for doing it other than to change things up. That's okay on a given week if it fits (we've had week's at The Crossing where we've used very little technology and gone completely acoustic and raw for a service, but again...it's very intentional and fits with that particular weeks message), but it's not okay to do it just for the sake of doing it.

So, what am I saying in all of this?

I'm saying that the concept of VISUAL SILENCE is a good one when used with purpose and in context.
I'm saying that it can be very powerful in the telling of the story of the gospel.
I'm saying that we have to be careful how we employ it in our services.

But, mainly I'm saying that it needs to be called something different because it's NOT silent.

It speaks.
LOUDLY.

What should we call it?

There's a two word phrase that shows up in scripture several times.

BE STILL.

My take is that we are being visually still when we take these breaks.
Strip the color.
Blackout the screens.
Turn down the house lights.

Be still...

VISUAL STILLNESS.

Much thanks to Eric McClerren (@ericmcclerren)

for discussing this topic with me

and leading me to listen to the stillness.

You can check him out at storybooktheology.com.