Prophets Among Us

October 27, 2025 § Leave a comment

In a previous post I shared a message about the nurture of ministry in our meetings at its various stages in our members from Brian Drayton’s Messages to Meetings. Here I want to share some of letter 14, “Friends, welcome prophets among us in these dark times!” (pages 55–57)

I quote Brian:

Here is one thing I know: a prophetic people is one that welcomes the arising of prophecy. The first motion is, in love, to make room for the leadings and the people who are led and give them opportunity to bring what they have been given. This advice comes from the earliest life of the Christian movement.

In the ancient book of advice called the Didache or The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, the little fellowships gathered in Christ’s name are admonished to be open to the motion of the Spirit as embodied in traveling ministers: “Let every apostle [one who has been sent] who comes to you be received as the Lord.” Knowing that we have this treasure in earthen vessels, we are to “try the spirits” and feel where the divine is present when someone feels moved to act or speak under the guiding influence of the Divine Spirit—but we are warned not to quench the Spirit’s motion but to accept the unexpected activity of that Spirit in our lives as a community as well as individuals. The Spirit blows where it will, and you hear its sound but don’t know whence it comes or whither it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit. (John 3:8)

As a people, we have fallen so far into a comfortable and secular mind that we think concerns and leadings are somehow a matter personal to the concerned Friend and our meetings can pick and choose whom to hear, whom to invite and allow to come among us! That is a way to avoid the uncomfortable evidence that the living God is still working through us, preparing individuals and pushing them or drawing them into service. It is a way not to change, not to grow, and to keep control of our schedules and our attention—to keep ourselves unfree. We often talk about being “Spirit-led,” but as a people how available are we really to that experience?

When we make time for the unexpected, when we accept the opportunities that come to us through Friends who are called to travel to us and have the encouragement of their meetings to do so, we enable those Friends, and others not yet arisen, to learn better how to watch for, hear, bear, and accomplish their serivce. Our meetings are “schools of the prophets”—or can be if we recognize the opportunities that come our way, accept them with joy, and learn from them—both from the message and from our experience of reception and discernment.

I have known many Friends, newly drawn into service, who have been discouraged by the convention that prophets come to meetings only when meetings issue invitations. This turns the matter upside down, Friends. The calling and the service are given through the body, through and out of the common life in the Spirit, and represent an invitation from God to see, to feel, to know, and perhaps to act in fresh ways, in ways renewed by the living water of God’s life that brings these leadings and opportunities to us.

It can be inconvenient for a meeting to make room for such an unplanned “wildcat” experience of the Spirit. It may also be that a Friend’s concern brought to a meeting will require some discernment by the meeting about ways and means. I can assure you, though, that it is pretty inconvenient for a Friend to have such a concern, to set aside other things, and to dare to stand forth, to dare to speak for God and for us. The sense of unreadiness, of unworthiness, of emptiness is very sharp in such a Friend, and they are only too conscious of difficulties for themselves and for those they visit. Yet the act of faithfulness, however imperfectly accomplished, is a step into greater life, and if it is rooted in love, it is evidence of God’s work and life active among us. And, Friends, there is such a famine among us, and among people in general, for such evidence!

So, if a Friend reaches out to your meeting with an earnest statement that they are traveling under a concern with the unity of their meeting (your brothers and sisters!), remember that we can earn a prophet’s reward even by offering a cup of water to a prophet. Find a way to entertain this Friend, as we are to entertain strangers sent among us, for thereby we may unexpectedly be visited by an angel—not the traveling Friend but the beloved Spirit, the Shepherd and Teacher, made available in the giving and receiving of spiritual hospitality. Make room, Friends, light your lamps in welcome, live like people who truly love the Spirit, and who love to see the springs of Life break forth in any one!

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.

Meetings and Ministry, Part 4: Reviewing Faith and Practice

August 7, 2025 § Leave a comment

Yearly meetings should review their books of Faith and Practice to ensure that they treat minutes of travel and service fully, including what to do with such minutes when a member transfers membership. The recommendations below are based on Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s entry on minutes of travel and service, which is rather brief but it covers the essentials pretty well.

The F&P entry on minutes of travel should:

  • Process. Lay out the process for clearness regarding the leading—to whom a Friend with a leading should go and what the clearness for discerning a leading should be. Lay out the process for writing the minute, and for its approval.
  • Minute’s content. Provide guidelines for the content of the minute—nature, scope, and duration of the proposed service, affirmation of the meeting’s support, room for endorsements.
  • Support. Consider forming a spiritual support committee of some kind for the minister while pursuing their ministry.
  • Release. Recommend that the meeting consider ways to help release the minister from obstacles to their service, if there are any.
  • Companionship. Recommend traveling with an elder or companion, if possible.
  • Meeting endorsement. Recommend endorsement by the regional meeting and the yearly meeting if the travel will extend beyond the region or the yearly meeting.
  • Visitation endorsement. Recommend asking that the bodies being visited endorse the minute, on its back or on an attached page, giving the name of the body visited, its location, and the date of service, comments on the character and quality of the service, and a signature and date of signature by the person(s) presiding in the visited body.
  • Reporting. Provide guidelines for reporting back to the meeting, perhaps annually.
  • Laying down. Provide guidelines for discernment and the laying down of the minute with final reporting when the minister and the meeting are clear that the minister has been released from their leading by the Holy Spirit.
  • Transfer of membership. Provide guidelines for both the transferring meeting and a member’s new meeting regarding the transfer of the minute and of care for any spiritual support that the transferring meeting may have convened for the minister.

Meetings and Ministry, Part 3: Travel Minutes in the Digital Age

August 3, 2025 § 3 Comments

I have a minute of travel for the fostering of the gathered meeting among Friends, which was originally written by Central Philadelphia Meeting. But I have since then transferred my membership to Princeton Meeting in New Jersey. Both meetings are in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. PhYM’s Faith and Practice is not clear about how to deal with the transfer of such a minute as part of a transfer of membership, so both meetings have had to work much of it out on their own. Princeton Meeting has just approved a new draft of the minute, so now that ministry is under Princeton’s care.

I want to post about the issues that transferring a minute raises later. Here I want to talk about how we handle minutes of travel and service in a time when many meetings don’t really know the faith and practice of Quaker ministry very well, when our books of discipline are not necessarily much help, and especially, when we often “travel” and serve virtually rather than in person.

Let’s start with the traditional practice using a hard copy of the minute.

Using a hard copy

Presenting the minute. I’m not sure how a minute of travel was presented to the meeting being visited in the elder days. Did the clerk of the minister’s meeting send it ahead of the visit, or did the minister bring it with them and present it themselves? Did they bring a letter from the clerk also, or was the minute sufficient in itself. I suspect the latter, but I hope some of my readers might know for sure.

Endorsing the minute. As I understand it, in the elder days the clerk or someone representing the body being visited endorsed the minute afterward on the back of the minute. This would include:

  • the name, location, and other relevant description of the body visited and the date of visitation, 
  • comments about how the ministry was received, and 
  • a signature with the date of signature. 

In the Quakerism class I took with Bill Taber at Pendle Hill, if I remember correctly, he said that endorsement often was something quite minimal, such as, “Friend Steven Davison visited X Meeting in Y city, Z state on A of B month C year. His ministry was found acceptable. Signed Weighty Quaker, A’ of B’ month, C’ year.” Assuming, of course, that the ministry was acceptable. If there was some perceived problem, then the endorser said whatever seemed appropriate. 

Using an electronic copy

Nowadays, however, we often “travel” to give our ministry virtually through Zoom or some other internet-based conferencing tool. I have done just this for an FGC program on the gathered meeting earlier this year and for a Pendle Hill program on the gathered meeting during the pandemic. Neither I nor the sponsors of either of those programs followed these formal steps, so the questions of how to present the minute and how to endorse it in this virtual situation didn’t come up. I did tell FGC about my minute, but neither one of us took the matter further. But I think we should have; I wasn’t paying good attention.

But if we had tried to follow tradition, how would I have presented a digiital minute and how would they have endorsed it? Should we have used a digital copy of the minute in the first place?

Hard copy or digital?

Mailing the hard copy back and forth would be a bit cumbersome but staying analog has its appeal. For one thing, the conventions of practice for this are more or less settled and pretty straightforward. But more important, endorsing a digital copy turns out to be awfully complicated. I’ve been experimenting with doing so with my own minute’s pdf file as a learning exercise, and whew—not easy. I’ve tried one thing after another before settling on something that is still cumbersome, but I hope it meets the need, since I suspect that some circumstances will require the use of a digital version of the minute.

Here are my thoughts.

Creating the minute. The minute’s original hard copy format will almost certainly be a printed Word file, but its ultimate format will be a pdf so that the minute can’t be overwritten by accident. Normally, the clerk of the meeting would sign the minute after printing it, but this complicates things: now, in order to create a pdf file that includes the signature, you have to scan it. You could just let the typed name of the clerk stand for the signature and just save the Word doc as a pdf. But that doesn’t solve the problem of how to endorse the pdf.

Preparing for endorsement. To solve that problem, I would add a couple of pages to the Word doc for the endorsements before you scan it, maybe with a heading at the top of each of these extra pages like “Endorsements”. Then scan it to create a multi-page pdf file.

So what do you call this digital file?

Filename. I think the filename needs four elements:

  1. the minister’s name;
  2. the minister’s meeting;
  3. a descriptive, like “minute of travel”; and
  4. the date it was approved. 

For example: “Steven Davison – Minute of Travel – Princeton Meeting – Approved 07-12-2025”.

Presenting the minute. Whatever the traditional practice was, I think that the clerk of the meeting should send the minute along with an accompanying letter on behalf of the meeting and the minister. I don’t necessarily think it would be inappropriate for the minister to do it. But I prefer the clerk sending the minute for a number of reasons: 

  • This gives more weight to the ministry; it reflects and confirms that the meeting is behind the ministry. 
  • It unburdens the minister and relieves her or him from some potential awkwardness in presenting one’s self.
  • It ensures that the meeting has a centralized record of all the doings around the ministry. At some point, the ministry will likely be laid down and/or the minister may no longer be around, and then all might be lost if she or he is the sole recorder of the minute’s travels.

I think the sender should bcc her or himself so that the sender has a copy of the email with the minute and accompanying letter or body of the email and they can store both in whatever virtual folder the meeting and/or the minister have created for such things. See the item on storage below.

Endorsement. Now—how do you endorse a pdf file of a travel minute? This is why you have to add those extra pages to the Word doc. Since most people will be using Adobe Reader to read the minute and Reader doesn’t let you write on a pdf file, the preparation for endorsement will have to take place on the Word file before the pdf is created. Here’s how I would provide for the endorsements:

In the accompanying letter, the sender asks the receiving clerk to do the following once the minister’s service is done:

  1. Print the multi-page pdf file of the minute;
  2. write by hand (legibly) the endorsement on the added page for endorsements, including the meeting or visited body and date of service, comments, signature and date of signature;
  3. re-scan the whole document, creating a new pdf file with the same filename; and
  4. return the rescanned pdf file to the the clerk of the minister’s meeting and /or the minister.

Process and storage. The final question is where do the Word file and pdf file live between visits? As I said above, I think the meeting itself should keep a record of all the travels of the minute, even if the minister is doing this also. These records should not be on a personal computer hard drive, but rather on a cloud drive, so that it’s not dependent on a member who may leave the meeting for some reason. The login information for this drive* should be shared between at least two people: the clerk of the meeting and the meeting’s treasurer, this latter because the meeting’s financial accounts presumably are also being kept in a central location that is independent of personnel changes. If the meeting has a physical filing system, I would create a file with this information to be stored in that filing cabinet, also. And maybe there are other people in the meeting to include, like the meeting’s recorder (the person responsible for the meeting’s membership statistics) and its secretary, if the meeting has these positions.

* I would keep all the meeting’s digital accounts in a central digital location: website hosting service login, its payment method and contract renewal settings; likewise for the same information for the Facebook account; and so on. I know of at least two meetings who lost their websites because the website’s management was in the hands of someone who either dropped the ball or left the meeting and the hosting service expired without anybody knowing

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