The Power of Silence & the Pregnant Pause

For many of us, silence is something we try to avoid, both in conversations and in preaching. But as Richard John Neuhaus aptly describes in his time watching Martin Luther King, Jr. deliver his sermons, there is power in silence:

During the times I was with Dr. King, I was struck by the way he did this almost consistently. Upon being intro­duced, or when the time came for the sermon, he would stand and wait, sometimes for ten seconds or more. It was what is known as a pregnant moment.

It was a very active kind of waiting. His eyes would pass…