Vocal Ministry: A Garden, a School of the Spirit
October 6, 2025 § 1 Comment
Vocal ministry is the signature form of ministry in the Quaker way. As such, it is the classroom and laboratory in the school of the Spirit for Quaker ministry of all kinds. In our practice of vocal ministry, we can learn and experiment with all of the spiritual elements that make up the faith and practice of Quaker ministry more generally.
Listening for the Voice. The spiritual foundation of ministry is listening for the Voice that is calling us into service, an expectant attention to a possible anointing by the Spirit within us for service. Something there is within us that can hear that call, that can see that light, that can feel that prompt as a seed sprouting, pushing aside the soil of our soul and unfurling into the light of consciousness.
Nurturing the plant. Once you feel that baptism, then the attention changes into a form of waiting to see how the plant grows, combined with however we water such emerging shoots with deep contemplation. We nurture it, give it the fertilizer of this new kind of attention, until it matures and perhaps a flower blooms, a message, or a mission, that is taking more definite form.
Expectant waiting. Once the shoot, now a plant, has produced a blossom, a possible message, attention shifts again. We remain attentive and open, trying to hold onto the opening but not obstructing its development. Will we see it pollenated? Will new thoughts and feelings enter our regard and enrich it, so that some fruit begins to form? Or will the ministry of others bring some truth to the body ahead of our own that settles us back into silence? Or perhaps just the mystery of the deep silence itself will bring the fruit to maturity. If so, eventually a beam of Light shines upon it with clarity, a wind of the Spirit shakes the branch, and it falls ripe into your hand.
Discerning the Spirit. But we are not done yet. Another form of attention is required. Has it truly been pollenated by God? Is this fruit the fruit of the Spirit or of ego, or of a mind engaged but without a true spiritual transmission? Is it just for my own nourishment, or has it been given to me to serve to the meeting? If so, then, we become clear and out to the diners at the messianic banquet it goes.
Serving faithfully. Now, more deep listening even while speaking is required. If it has been given for the meeting, do I keep my ego off the plate in its delivery? Is my ministry truly service and savory in itself, or have I over-seasoned it? And do I know when the plate has been cleared, and I can sit down, having fulfilled my service?
Eldering. Once I’ve sat down, how do I feel—deeply at peace or quite energized, not in the satisfaction of self, but in some transcending sense of relief or of satisfaction? How does my Guide, the spirit of the christ, of the anointing, feel about my service? This inner reflection is just as subtle and delicate as all the other forms of spiritual attention we’ve exercised, just as reliant on experiment and practice. But we are not alone. What does the meeting think of my service? Is our meeting paying attention, deeply listening not just to the message but also to the Seed from which it grew? Is our meeting passing on the faith and tools for listening spirituality and ways to enter the depths of our being and listen? Is the meeting looking for opportunities to nurture those who are being called into service?
All of these forms of attention are versions of our listening spirituality, ways to attune ourselves to the movement of the Spirit within us and among us, to hear its message for us, as individuals and as meetings. Do we have teachers in this classroom? Have we given our ministers the tools they need to find their own faith and practices, so that they may grow in their service? And is the soil of our meeting’s garden fertile and ready to receive the new seeds that our ministry brings to us?
Meetings and Ministry, Part 5: Transferring Travel Minutes and Ministry Support Groups
August 7, 2025 § 1 Comment
As I said in a previous post, I have a minute of travel for the fostering of the gathered meeting among Friends, originally adopted by Central Philadelphia Meeting (CPM), and a spiritual support group that is nominally under the care of CPM’s Gifts and Leadings Committee. When I transferred my membership to Princeton Meeting in New Jersey, it wasn’t clear to anybody what to do with the minute or the support group. Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s Faith and Practice offers no help, so the two meetings have had to work it out on their own. Having just been through that process, I have some ideas about how to handle the transfer of minutes of travel and service and of care for the minister.
Review of discernment. Before writing a letter of transfer, I feel that the transferring member’s meeting should consider whether the Friend they are writing the letter for is still under the leading that originally led to the minute and whether she or he has been faithful in its service. If so, the meeting should recommend in its letter of transfer that the new meeting conduct some kind of discernment itself regarding the minute and any spiritual support group that the transferring member’s meeting has convened.
The minute. Regarding the minute, the new meeting could do one of three things:
- adopt the minute as it is on the recommendation of the transferring meeting;
- invite the new member to meet with worship and ministry or some committee to determine next steps; or
- convene its own clearness committee for discernment of a leading, along the lines laid out in Patricia Loring’s Pendle Hill Pamphlet Spiritual Discernment, #305.
In my case, we followed the second option, which worked fine. I met with Princeton Meeting’s Care and Concerns Committee (its pastoral care committee), and they crafted a revised version of the minute and recommended it to the meeting, which then approved it. This process was simple and it worked well.
The spiritual support group. Regarding any spiritual support group or anchor committee that may have been formed by the transferring meeting to support the minister and her or his ministry, the new meeting’s actions would depend on circumstances. The basic principle should be this, though: that the support committee should at least have members from the minister’s new worshipping community and it should probably be under the new meeting’s care.
In my situation, because the members of my committee are from different meetings and regions and even continents, and because all of the members of my current support committee want to remain on the committee, and because we meet on Zoom, my current committee is staying in place. So we have asked Princeton Meeting to name at least two new members to the committee, so that my support and my support committee will have a direct relationship with my worshipping community. We have yet to work out whether Princeton Meeting will formally take the committee under its care, but as I said, I think that that would be rightly ordered.
However, if the support committee has been meeting in person, and/or some of its members don’t want to continue serving, then the new meeting and any committee members that do want to continue serving will have to decide whether to start meeting virtually. Or, if the new meeting feels that in-person meeting is important, it might want to convene its own all new committee. Ultimately, care of the ministry is now up to the new meeting.
Continuing Revelation—Tradition as Discernment Touchstone
July 23, 2022 § 1 Comment
As a touchstone for Quaker discernment, historical tradition has some things in common with scripture. First, it’s not just useful, it’s necessary. We cannot afford to cut the tree of Quakerism from its roots. Notwithstanding its continuing evolution, the first Friends gave us truths that remain essential to our present faith and practice and our future as a religious movement.
That said, the tradition has been evolving over the centuries. Just ten years after George Fox convinced the Seekers at Firbank Fall in 1652, he inaugurated changes that completely reshaped the movement in “gospel order”. Within a generation, the movement had abandoned the Lamb’s War and cut the deal with the “establishment” as recounted in Douglas Gwyn’s The Covenant Crucified. We transformed from a radical militant movement believing itself the second coming of Christ to a withdrawn, self-contained, essentially quietist sect of dissenters. And that was only the beginning; we’ve been changing, sometimes radically, ever since.
And here we are today with four branches of the movement, each of which adheres to different aspects of the original truth, not to mention the sometimes significant differences within these branches. And we also variously reject some aspects of tradition in our distinctivenesses. We are picking and choosing our historical tradition’s various truths, just as we pick and choose from the Bible, while we either claim that we’re not doing that, or at least, that our choices are the right ones.
Which aspects of our tradition do we choose to touch as we test a new leading? What guides our choices for a touchstone, and what guides our choices for ignoring other parts of our tradition? Do we even ask ourselves these questions while we’re trying to discern the spirit of a new leading?
Furthermore, as we do with the Bible, we apply the touchstone of tradition in the context of the community’s power dynamics; ecclesiastical authority—and its relative lack—often trump tradition in our practice of discernment. Even in the branches that do not exercise the hierarchical ecclesiastical authority of the yearly meeting over monthly meetings, the subtle “political” dynamics of the community often shoulder out the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Like the Bible, tradition is an important, yet somewhat unreliable touchstone for testing new leadings.
Through the Flaming Sword 