The Importance of Vocal Ministry: The Gathered Meeting
September 18, 2018 § 1 Comment
The signature insight of the Quaker way is that each of us can commune directly with God, for the spirit of Christ (however you experience it) is within us. The practice of listening spirituality, of attuning one’s self to this Inner Guide, is the armature of the individual Quaker’s spiritual life, and from it we derive healing, direction, inspiration, creativity, forgiveness, joy, and love.
The second signature insight of the Quaker way is that the worshipping meeting also can commune directly with God as a worshipping community. The meeting for worship also revolves around a spiritual Center, and we seek to become one with it in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). This Source, this Well, may only become palpable to us occasionally in the gathered meeting, but the experience of the gathered meeting confirms for us that it is there, that this living water for which we yearn is real, however mysterious it may be, or however many ways we may individually name it.
Vocal ministry is perhaps the most important vehicle we have for taking us to that Well and for lowering a bucket into that Well and drawing forth collective grace. Vocal ministry is, in fact, the bucket we use to poor the Holy Spirit into each other’s jars. It also is one of the most potent forces hindering the gathered meeting, when it does not draw consistently from that Well.
As the only outward form in our worship, vocal ministry naturally tends to draw us outward, toward the words and their meanings and ramifications and away from the Well at the center. It also naturally tends to draw us upward, toward the surface thoughts and feelings in our minds and away from the depths within us, where the Seed dwells.
Thus, the role of the Spirit-called minister is to use the outward form to turn us back toward the Seed within us and toward the Center in our midst. The minister is a servant of the Light and the Seed, of the Spirit and the Truth. Vocal ministry is the listening spirituality of the meeting in action.
Thus the ministry’s style should not be jarring or “jangling”, as George Fox was wont to say. And its content should remind us of who we really are in the Spirit and where we are (at the Well) and where we are trying to go—toward spirit, truth, and love.
Each successive message should take us closer. It should be deeper, or at least not more superficial, than previous messages. It should incline us more inward, not more outward. It should carry more love and more service, not more “meaning”, more cleverness, or more of me.
Even heartfelt personal sharing, which we often get as vocal ministry, though it is more at home in worship sharing, and though it does build temporary bonds between us and can strengthen a sense of community, nevertheless relocates the center of attention on one’s self, and thus perforce, away from the fully shared center we experience in the gathered meeting.
It is clear that many Friends need this kind of sharing—some need to share and as a community we need to hear what is on each other’s hearts. But that’s not worship. To meet this apparent need for sharing. meetings should hold gatherings for worship sharing. To sup from the Well of Living Water, we must enter the depths with vocal ministry that is already saturated with the Spirit.
I’m really mixing up my metaphors here, and now I want to offer another one. The image of the well is rich, at least for me, and it evokes the wonderful story of the Jesus and the Woman at the Well in the gospel of John. But a more modern metaphor might be more apt: that of the siphon.
A siphon is a tube that already has water in it, so that when you place one end in the Well, water naturally flows out of the well from the other end, against the pull of gravity, following the principle that water seeks its own level. The force that makes this possible is air pressure, which is invisible, but powerful.
Come to meeting for worship already full of the Spirit, dip your mind and soul into the Well at our collective center, and Living Water pours forth. One of the forms in which it pours forth is our vocal ministry, which is Spirit seeking its own level, seeking to return the listeners to its Source. And the invisible, powerful force behind it all is Divine Love.
When two or three of us (or more) find ourselves sharing from the same cup, we are gathered at the Well.
Through the Flaming Sword 
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