Through the Flaming Sword

Quaker membership operates on two planes, the spiritual plane and the social organizational plane—membership in the “body of Christ” and the reciprocal responsibilities and benefits of meeting life. Dive deeper into either of these dimensions of membership and you inevitably come to a set of ur-questions, which the Quaker clearness process for membership is designed to answer:

• What is the life of the spirit for? How does the person seeking (or practicing) membership in a Quaker meeting understand their spiritual journey?
• Where does a meeting community fit in? What do members come to the meeting for, and what do they come to the meeting with?
• And finally, do their answers align with the answers offered by the meeting?

Of course, this last question assumes that the meeting has a relatively clear answer about what the life of the spirit is for, what they want from members, and what they offer.

Meetings tend to define membership in terms of what they want from members. Everybody pretty much agrees about these four: participation in worship, participation in the business of the meeting, including committee service, and financial support.

But these are all “outward” commitments. They speak to the inner life of the member not at all. We’re missing an absolute essential: We also want their spiritual gifts. We want their leadings and their ministries, especially their Spirit-led vocal ministry. We want their prayers. We want them to enrich our collective religious life with their individual spiritual stories and gifts and strengths—and their spiritual weaknesses, their seeking spirits, their inner cryings-out.

But what does the meeting offer in return? Meetings often fail to consider this side of the membership covenant. (More about “covenant” later.) My next post explores what I think meetings should be offering their members.

Tagged: membership