Through the Flaming Sword

For years—for decades—I have been thinking and writing about and believing in the potential for vocal ministry as an ongoing calling rather than as an episodic prompting to speak that arises in the moment, and the kinds of support that such a calling should receive. Friends seem to have experienced vocal ministry this way, as a calling, for centuries until Friends in some quarters began laying down the practice of recording ministers in the early twentieth century.

In the meetings that no longer record gifts in ministry, and even in some that do, this sense of calling to vocal ministry seems to have left us, even though we recognize callings to other forms of ministry, like witness ministry for example, and even though vocal ministry is the signature form of ministry in the Quaker tradition. This is one of the most significant changes in all the history of Quaker religious culture, and it seems to have gone oddly unnoticed, at least in the Quaker circles I move in.

Meanwhile, although I’ve been basically obsessed with this matter for a long time, I have not felt such a calling myself—until recently. Now I do, and I want to share some of what that’s been like. 

I think I see a couple of reasons for my new sense of calling.

First, I have been working for months on a Pendle Hill Pamphlet submission on the meeting’s role in supporting vocal ministry and on what I call a culture of eldership more broadly. It’s now in Pendle Hill’s hands. So I’ve been steeping myself in our faith and practice of vocal ministry for quite a while and, more importantly, I’ve been diving deep into my own belief and experience of ministry in general, and vocal ministry in particular. It’s been a classic case of how Friend Richard Foster describes study as a spiritual discipline: Spirit-led study can awaken, deepen, and transform your faith and practice. 

Second, I’ve changed meetings, from Central Philadelphia Meeting, which is a large urban meeting with vocal ministry of varying degrees of “Spirit-led-ness”, to Princeton Meeting, a much smaller meeting with two meetings for worship. Friends in the earlier meeting, which I regularly attend, have often self-selected for more silence and less ministry than the later meeting often provides; completely silent meetings are not too uncommon. As for me, however, lately, for the first time in forty years as a Friend, I find myself speaking fairly often. I am usually one of only two or three ministers, as was the case last Sunday, for instance.

The discernment I’ve put into writing that essay on vocal ministry and its nurture has worked somehow, I think, with this surprising arising of my own ministry in practice, and awakened in me a sense of calling. I now do feel called to vocal ministry in the way I imagine ministers were in the elder days.

For a long time, I have felt a calling to a vocal ministry of teaching, keeping an ear open for opportunities to pass on our tradition. But this feels different. I do teach a bit in these new messages sometimes. But, even when that’s happening, it’s been secondary to messages of spiritual nurture. I can’t help but ladle out from our tradition or from the Bible, but I find myself trying primarily to quench spiritual thirst, rather than to pass on an element of our faith, practice, and experience.

How does this feel? It feels like I’m navigating a prophetic stream that is flowing inside of me, or through me. There is a sense of an abiding presence, of a continual inner river  of movement or momentum, prompting these messages, rather than a sense of a discreet personal Presence, like Jesus Christ, say, of a specific point source, let alone one with a name, as I imagine ministers experienced it in the elder days. But this presence does not feel vague or amorphous. It feels palpable and immediate. 

And it’s continuous. By that I mean that some mysterious underlying stream of influence seems to connect my messages over the weeks that separate them. It’s not a thematic connection or about the content; it’s not a feeling either; it’s something else, which I’m calling the spirit of the christ, by which I mean a spirit of anointing. For the Greek word christos means anointed. But I’ll leave that part of it for another post. 

Last Sunday, all this was especially palpable. I am nervous about how often I’m speaking, nervous on my own behalf, since the experience is still very new and feels fraught with spiritual risk. But I’m also nervous on behalf of the meeting and the other worshippers. I worry that I’m developing a reputation, and that others might be getting nervous, too, about where this is going and what I’m up to, especially as I am a relative newcomer bringing a new sensibility to the meeting in other ways besides this vocal ministry. And this frequent speaker Steven Davison is the only me they’ve known; they don’t know that I used to be a much more infrequent speaker. So I’ve been trying to be especially diligent in my discernment and even schooling myself not to speak, though I know I’m not supposed to do that either.

But right away last Sunday, I could feel that stream moving in me. I renewed my resolve to say in the boat and not look for a landing, and that was going quite well until fairly close to the end of the hour. Then a Friend spoke who I believe also has a calling to vocal ministry, though I’m not sure she feels that way. And as has happened several times in recent weeks, her message triggered something, and I found myself crafting a message that grew directly out of hers and the images she used. The Stream would not let me coast past that dock. So I landed and spoke.

And I do craft; my messages aren’t spontaneous speaking. Last Sunday, all my study and consideration came up and out and through into my words. I am a writer and a crafter and a student, and all that feels natural and correct to me; all that is a spiritual discipline for me. My “craftiness” is another source of worry for me, true, but these are the pipes I’ve been given. So an odd feeling of confidence or grounded-ness shares space with my worry in this boat.

And the meeting? I think our meeting—at least the earlier meeting for worship—has at least two other Friends who have what looks to me like a calling. I’ve spoken to one of them about this, and she seems willing to entertain the idea, at least. It feels to me like she’s experimenting with it.

But the wider meeting? I serve on Worship and Ministry committee and I’ve brought the idea of a calling to vocal ministry up somewhat obliquely, and my sense is that some members of the committee were a little unsure what I was talking about and others were ready to consider it more. I’m only just getting used to it myself as a personal reality rather than just as a subject for more abstract or impersonal study, thought, and sharing. So I guess we’ll all grow into this together.

Meanwhile, I started writing this post because I wanted to share the ministry I brought last Sunday, and I ended trying to articulate my experience instead. So in the next post, I want to share the actual ministry I brought last Sunday.