Through the Flaming Sword

I love exploring “theological” themes that I think are important to Friends, and I do this quite a bit in this blog. And I do think “theology” matters. It matters what questions we are asking ourselves and what are the answers that speak to us. It matters how we answer the questions of others, especially newcomers and our children. It matters how we approach our faith and practice and how we understand and express our religious experience.

But I have increasingly felt led lately to be more useful, to share resources that could enrich the spiritual formation of individual Friends and the religious life of our meetings. So I’m going to begin posting new material along these lines, and develop some resource pages in the pages section of this blog.

I have carried a ministry of seeking to recover and revitalize the faith and practice of Quaker ministry ever since my own first (negative) experience with seeking meeting support for a leading that I thought might challenge my spiritual well-being and the work to which I felt called. It’s a ministry on behalf of Quaker ministry. So this is where I would like to start.

Support groups for ministry

One of the fundamentals of Quaker spirituality is the faith and practice of Quaker ministry—watching, waiting, listening for when we may be called into some service on God’s behalf, and answering that call with faithfulness. One of the most important roles of the Quaker meeting is to nurture this faith and practice in our members, to help members who have some prompting of the spirit with discernment—is this a true leading or not?—and to support the minister when we are clear that they have in fact been called.

Every ministry faces obstacles. Every minister has moments of doubt, confusion, worry, and/or frustration in the face of outward obstacles and inward vagaries. So it’s really important that a meeting have a faithful culture of eldership, embodied in corporate systems of discernment and support, in the hands of earnest and caring Friends. The benefits are many:

• Structures and processes in the meeting for the eldership of ministry answer that of God in the minister, they protect and further the work, and they serve the motion of love in the world which the minister serves. They serve the work of the Spirit in the world.
• They integrate the minister and the ministry into the life of the meeting, bring the meeting into the work, and deepen the spiritual life of the meeting as a whole.
• They also deeply enrich the spiritual lives of those who care for the minister and her or his work. I have served on a couple of support groups for Friends who carry a ministry, and I want to testify to how important and rewarding this service is. I’m serving on one now, and literally every time our little group meets, we feel the Spirit moving within us and among us in love; it’s been one gathered meeting after another.

The spiritual nurture of Quaker ministry is a profound blessing all the way around.

Queries

So, some queries:

• What do you and your meeting do to share the faith, practice, and history of Quaker ministry, so that members really understand this aspect of Quaker spirituality, know how to approach the meeting when they feel they might have a leading or ministry, and feel confident that they will receive the support they need?
  • Do you sponsor religious education programs on Quaker ministry, for both adults and children?
  • Do you have members who know this tradition well enough to teach it or who are willing to study it and then teach it when they feel ready?
  • Do you have members who are following some leading or carrying some ministry already, who could share their experience with the rest of the meeting and/or who might need your support?
• Does your meeting have a committee that is prepared to provide corporate discernment and support of leadings and ministries, with Friends experienced in this kind of eldership, or Friends eager to learn by studying and doing? This need not be a dedicated committee with this charge only, but if it is your ministry and worship committee, or some other committee with a broader charge, is the eldership of ministry on its agenda and receiving proper attention?
• Do you have readily available resources that can guide these elders and inform your ministers in the faith and practice of Quaker ministry?
  • Does your meeting library have some essential materials on Quaker ministry?
  • Has your worship and ministry committee gathered the many resources available online into your institutional memory somehow, especially if you don’t have a meeting library or it’s not complete?

In my next post, I plan to offer these kinds of resources to make this part of the meeting’s job easier.