The Importance of Vocal Ministry: Spiritual Formation
September 17, 2018 § 2 Comments
The first reason, and maybe the most important reason, that meetings should develop a more robust culture of eldership around vocal ministry has to do with how we nurture the members’ personal spirituality in the context of the Quaker tradition.
The discipline of listening and discerning and faithfully answering the call to vocal ministry is the universal door into the very heart of Quaker spirituality. Our members and our meetings should treat vocal ministry as the most important element we all share in our spiritual formation as individuals.
The basic insight of the Quaker way is the belief—nay, the experience, the knowledge—that each of us can commune directly with the Divine and that this is the foundation for a Spirit-led life.
The classroom and laboratory of the school of the Spirit is the meeting for worship. And the signature learning exercise is vocal ministry. Learning to turn to the Light within us, learning to recognize the call of the Spirit into service, learning to discern whether the message is of God and rightly ordered—this is the one opportunity Quakerism offers each of us for developing the unique Quaker approach to the Spirit-led life.
We may not have had previous experience from some other tradition that could have helped to form our spirituality. We may not have a daily devotional life. We may not read the Bible or religious or spiritual books, or seek to learn Quakerism from our vast written tradition. We may not attend our meeting’s religious education programs, if our meeting has any. But we do go to meeting for worship and we do hear the vocal ministry of others, and, theoretically, we ourselves are expectantly waiting for the call to ministry ourselves.
The vocal ministry is the most important vehicle the meeting has for nurturing the spiritual life of our members in the Quaker way. We should use it. We should continually explain and reinforce the conventions of Quaker worship and vocal ministry, so that that much, at least, is shared by all, even—especially—newcomers. We should share how we approach this listening spirituality, this discernment and faithfulness, with each other. We should advertise and make available the classic Quaker resources on vocal ministry and build religious education programs around these resources. We should ask all members of our Worship and Ministry committees to be familiar with these resources and the committees should labor together to come to unity on how to lead the meeting’s culture of worship and ministry. This is the committee’s charge, after all.
If we were Presbyterians, our preachers would have been formally trained at seminary in homilettics, the art of giving sermons, and it would not involve just one course, but an entire program of professional development. We rely instead on the presence and action of the Holy Spirit and the openness and discernment of our members. But that should mean that the community and the individual member both take special responsibility for its exercise, because no professional will step in. A spiritual discipline like vocal ministry benefits from teachers and support “infrastructure”, takes practice, and deserves focused attention, just like playing the cello, driving a car, or counseling the troubled.
Through the Flaming Sword 
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On the other hand, one must not badger those who are gifted in other areas of ministry as if vocal ministry is the ONLY ministry there is!