Through the Flaming Sword

Each of our testimonies has come into the light through the Light. 

Someone turns toward the light within them and the Holy Spirit inspires an opening. Sometimes the opening matures into a message. If the message falls on fertile soil it bears fruit. The fruit is tested and if it lasts (John 15:16), it becomes a settled testimony.

Vocal ministry is the pipeline of revelation; it carries new truth from the prophetic stream into the lives of our members and our meetings.

I have seen this glorious process take place myself. In 1986, Marshall Massey brought a message to the Friends General Conference Gathering about the travails of the earth and an appeal for Quaker meetings to form earthcare committees. Less than a month later, two Friends brought his message from the Gathering to the annual sessions of New York Yearly Meeting. A handful of us came to hear that message and we did have ears to hear. Soon we had formed an earthcare task group. The yearly meeting eventually laid down that task group without forming a standing committee, but in the meantime, it had revised its Faith and Practice to include a testimony on earthcare.

The Holy Spirit is always trying to carry us forward with new truth about how to live rightly in the world.