Silence & Solitude: Helpful Worship by Mark Driscoll

• Luke 5:15 (NASB)

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Silence & Solitude: Helpful Worship by Mark Driscoll

During an evening of perusing through blogs I came across this one by Mark Driscoll. This is an excellent series about the importance of Silence and Solitude. Here is a short five (5) part series entitled “Organizing a Silence and Solitude Day”, I wanted to share with all of you. The links follow with a SHORT excerpt from each post:

1. Organizing a Silence and Solitude Day Part 1

In his book Leading On Empty, Wayne Cordeiro says that there are only four ways to live your life:
1. Reaction – passively dominated by urgencies and pushy people
2. Conformity – succumbing to the fear of man and just being and doing what everyone else wants, which is not necessarily following God’s will for you personally
3. Independence – nonconforming rebellion in the name of freedom, marked by doing only what you want and ignoring godly authority over you
4. Intentionality – reverse-engineering your life and living it prayerfully and purposefully, journaling your thoughts throughout the day, and using silence and solitude to hear from God and organize your life

Which one of these four most typifies you? Is your life a frazzled mess because you are in perpetual reaction mode? Have you not really even deeply pondered God’s will for your life but just done what you were told by other people?

Are you the sort of person who is defiant, independent, and self-reliant? Or, do you regularly (e.g., at least one hour a week and one day a month) get silence and solitude with God to work on your life before you work in it?

1. Organizing a Silence and Solitude Day Part 2

Four Ways to Change Your Life
1. Heart change – conviction from God and repentance from you
2. Study – research and fact-finding for how to change your life, which includes reading the Bible and other books, speaking with people you know who have wisdom, etc.
3. Plan – ongoing, detailed, and prayerful life organization
4. Action – working your plan and making changes as life requires

2. Organizing a Silence and Solitude Day Part 3

There are many things you can do during your periods of solitude, including:

1. Nothing
2. Meditate on a short section of Scripture
3. Rest
4. Read long sections of Scripture
5. Pray, including a prayer-walk/hike/bike
6. Read a good book
7. Journal

3. Organizing a Silence and Solitude Day Part 4

Silence and Solitude Stealers

Despite the Bible’s exhortation and Jesus’ example to enjoy times of silence and solitude, few Christians regularly enjoy these gifts from God. This is because there are some real enemies at work that need to be combated for silence and solitude to be enjoyed. The following are some of the more common silence and solitude stealers that have to be dealt with as an act of repentance:

4. Organizing a Silence and Solitude Day Part 5

Journaling

The following is a copy of the template I created for myself to organize my days of silence and solitude for the purpose of journaling. I offer it knowing that you can and should change it to fit your life. This is not Scripture, it’s not perfect, and I don’t claim it is. Rather, it is a simple tool for you to adapt as you need. For me, I keep notes in my Moleskine throughout the week, and sit down to answer these questions on my laptop in a Word document. This keeps it simple for me and allows me to see God’s work in my life over time.

Ideally, every Christian would do a modified version of this plan every week as an act of worship, taking around an hour to answer a few of the questions that are most pressing for them. In addition, it is wise to take at least one full day a month in silence and solitude to answer all the questions without being rushed, leaving time to open your Bible, pray, repent, worship, and ponder.

To the praise of the glory of His grace – Thank you Mark Driscoll.

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