Vocal Ministry and the School of the Spirit
August 6, 2026 § Leave a comment
As the signature form of ministry in the Quaker way, vocal ministry is a classroom and laboratory in the school of the Spirit, for the faith, the practice, and the experience of ministry of all kinds, for the fostering of its openings, the refinement of its discernment, and its nurture in the meeting.
Faith
In the vocal ministry, we believe in the Light within us, the light of the christ, God’s anointing spirit, which anointed Jesus as the Christ for his vocal ministry (Luke 4:18), and which is the source of our own openings, leadings, and callings.
In the vocal ministry, we have faith in the discernment of spirits, in an inner Guide who threshes the messages and winnows the kernels from the chaff.
In the vocal ministry, we have faith (or perhaps just hope) in the meeting’s eldership, in its proactive, Spirit-led tutelage and nurture of the vocal ministry and its ministers, and in its clarity and faithfulness in maintaining the peace of the Word.
Practice
In the vocal ministry, we practice the spirituality of inward listening that is distinctive to the Quaker way, of attuning ourselves to our inner Spirit-voice, who may call us to service; and as meetings we teach the ministry’s faith and practice and watch for those whose gifts are emerging, ready to water their sprouts with love.
In the vocal ministry, we practice the spirituality of discernment, testing whether the words of our mouth and the meditations of our heart are truly from the Word of wisdom; and as meetings we mind the vines as they grow to maturity and we accept the fruits of their ministry in the Spirit in which it is given forth.
In the vocal ministry, we practice the spirituality of faithfulness, we are led by our Guide on the path of love and truth, lest we step through the traces or run past our guide; and as meetings we help to prune the vine so as to restore its fruitfulness, when necessary.
Experience
In the vocal ministry, we experience the joy of divine openings, the caring hand of our Guide, and the deep satisfaction of faithful service.
In the vocal ministry, we experience the Holy Spirit’s continuing revelation.
In the vocal ministry, we experience the covering of the Spirit, the in-gathering of our collective consciousness in the cascade of Spirit-led ministry; we experience the Presence in our midst.
Patterns and Examples
In the vocal ministry, in all these ways we see how the blessings of the Spirit manifest in the patterns and examples of our vocal ministry for all the forms of Quaker ministry, in its faith and practice and experience, as the anointing/christ-ing Spirit of God in action within us and among us, calling us into service both personally and collectively.
New Pendle Hill Pamphlet
June 5, 2026 § Leave a comment
Pendle Hill has just released my new pamphlet Nurturing Vocal Ministry: Toward a Vital Culture of Eldership.
In this essay, I explore ways to deepen our meetings’ vocal ministry, to support our ministers, and foster deeper worship and the gathered meeting through what I call a vital culture of eldership. By this I mean the faith and practices, the attitudes and agreements through which we nurture the spiritual lives of our members and attenders.
I worry that since we laid down the practice of recording ministers and elders in many of our yearly meetings, and even in those that still retain the practice, we’ve stopped paying proactive attention to vocal ministry and stopped offering support to emerging ministers. I lay out some reasons for why nurturing vocal ministry more attentively is so important to our spiritual lives, as worshippers, as ministers, and as meetings.
I discuss some ways that our meetings and our worship and ministry committees could do more to nurture Spirit-led ministry and deepen the worship. I answer some of the hesitations that Friends have regarding a more attentive culture of eldership and lay out the many benefits to both our meetings and our members of such a culture.
I point out that we are already there when it comes to nurturing other kinds of ministry, especially witness ministry—we are more likely to recognize when someone is called to service, we treat their leading as an essential aspect of Quaker faith, and we are much more likely to know how to support them in practice.
Meanwhile, however, vocal ministry is the signature form of ministry in the Quaker way. Why would we not support spoken ministry in worship with the same focus and care that we give to other forms of ministry, especially since virtually all forms of Quaker ministry involve Spirit-led spoken word, anyway?
For vocal ministry in worship is the classroom and laboratory of the school of the Spirit. Through spoken ministry in worship we can learn to listen for the call to service, discern what that service is and whether it is of God, and learn how to be faithful while we serve.
And I explore the role that faith plays in our vocal ministry. By what “Spirit” am I being led when I rise to speak?
My answer is that I am led by the spirit of the christ, little “c”, the Spirit that anointed Jesus as the Christ for his ministries of leading, healing, forgiving, and teaching—his vocal ministry; that anointed his first followers for vocal ministry at the Pentecost; that anointed George Fox when he convinced the Seekers on Firbank Fell in 1652 and jump-started the Quaker movement, and that anointed them all in that moment in a second Pentecost.
That same anointing/christing Spirit (for the Greek word christos means anointed) that has been anointing Quaker ministers ever since, including those who will rise to speak this coming First Day in our own meetings—in theory. Or so I am suggesting.
What can we do to nurture this essential blessing of Quaker worship and the Quaker way? This pamphlet tries to answer that question.
Spiritual Gifts Revisited
February 14, 2026 § 4 Comments
I once became close to a Friend while teaching First Day School together and discovered that she volunteered once a week in a hospice. Who knew? I think it’s possible that nobody else in the meeting did. She obviously had a gift for pastoral care and a leading to serve in that gift. Did she think of it as a spiritual or religious calling? Did she sometimes carry home some of the grief and pain that she witnessed during her ministry? Did she go through rough patches sometimes, or doubt her calling? Did she need any kind of spiritual support? Would she come to the meeting for that support? And would her meeting be equipped to offer it? How many Friends have gifts and leadings like hers that remain invisible to their meeting, maybe even to themselves?
We Friends believe that each of us has been endowed with gifts of the Spirit, and that many of us, if not all of us, will be called into some form of life-affirming service, some “ministry”, at some point in our lives. At least, that’s the “official”, traditional conviction. Also, in theory, one of our meetings’ most important responsibilities is to recognize and nurture these gifts, to recognize leadings into service, and to support them both.
However, too often our members and attenders have never been invited to think about their spiritual gifts or how they might be led into ministry. Nor have our meetings done anything on their part to recognize and nurture their gifts and leadings. Often, the closest we get is nominating committee trying to match the experience and skills, the talents and interests of members to the slots in the meeting’s committee roster; nominating committee does recognize some gifts, and serving on a committee can be fulfilling. But that’s not real proactive spiritual nurture of the gifts themselves.
No one starts off thinking in terms of spiritual gifts and leadings. You have to be exposed, invited, even taught this way of thinking. Yet, we often find our way into our gifts by instinct anyway. People who have been given a chance will often find their gifts “accidentally”, by virtue of their family upbringing, or their education, or other aspects of their environment, their church, or hobbies, or Scouts or 4H, or some mentor(s), or whatever. And they need to be lucky enough not to have been traumatized or oppressed along the way.
So we may gravitate into our gifts and leadings naturally, organically, but still not think of them this way. I know I have. But I eventually came to recognize them as gifts of the Spirit because one of my callings is to the study of religion and of Quakerism, especially the faith and practice of Quaker ministry. Study is one of my gifts and one of my spiritual disciplines; I’m good at it and it feeds my soul. I ended up teaching myself until I found mentors in Doug Gwyn and Bill Taber at Pendle Hill.
So I came to understand and develop my gifts and leadings in the arms of my Quaker tradition. But it took decades to finally find a meeting whose arms embraced this kind of spiritual nurture. Until relatively recently, it has been mostly Quaker institutions that have helped me: Pendle Hill, as I said, and also Earlham School of Religion, the School of the Spirit, and lately, Woodbrooke.
Some meetings write memorial minutes for their deceased members, and often this is the first time their meeting has paid attention to the gifts that they brought to others, to the meeting, to the world. We need to make opportunities for our members and attenders to share what they’re up to with an eye to identifying their spiritual gifts before they die. I would build this role into the questions we ask folks who apply for membership in our clearness committees for membership, so that we identify their gifts upfront—not just so that we can match them up with appropriate committees, but so that we can look for ways to nurture those gifts more directly, if they want it.
Many Lighted Candles
November 22, 2025 § Leave a comment
In his Apology, Robert Barclay offers a lovely metaphor for the gathered meeting (page 280 in Dean Freiday’s modern translation):
He [God] also causes the inward life to be more abundant when his children are diligent in assembling together to wait upon him. . . . The mere sight of each other’s faces when two persons are gathered inwardly into the life gives occasion for that life to rise secretly and pass from vessel to vessel. Many lighted candles, when gathered together in a single place, greatly augment each other’s light and make it shine more brilliantly. In the same way, when many are gathered together into the same life, there is more of the glory of God. Each individual receives greater refreshment, because he partakes not only of the light and life that has been raised in him, but in the others as well.
With his description of the life rising secretly and passing from vessel to vessel, Barclay is describing the transcendental, psychic dimension of the gathered meeting. By “secretly”, I think he means invisibly, without a tangible mode of communication or transference, and inwardly, coming to abide within each of us as vessels. And I suspect that he means the image of many candles augmenting the light in the same transcendental way.
But we can carry the candle metaphor further. The tangible reality of many candles in a real meeting room augments the light by revealing many areas that would be in shadow with fewer candles. One candle would cast many shadows in the room. But the more candles you add, the more of these shadow regions in the room become illuminated.
In this way, the metaphor obviously applies to vocal ministry, in which the Spirit can work through more vessels, more life stories, knowledge, and experiences, more perspectives, more openings into truth, and more faithfulness, to illuminate the shadows in each other’s hearts.
But the worshippers also bring these qualities with them into the silence, as well as into their ministry, to animate and shape the transcendental dimension of the gathered meeting. This is more of a mystery. How do the inward unspoken qualities of the worshippers give the gathered meeting its energy and joy? How do their intentions and focus and spiritual yearnings bring the Life into the gathering? And what provides the medium through which this Life flows from vessel to vessel?
A subject for another post.
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!
Ministry for and to Different Conditions
October 25, 2025 § Leave a comment
I’ve just finished reading Brian Drayton’s Messages to Meetings, a book of epistles to Quaker meetings and gatherings “written originally out of a motion of love and with the intent that they might help some readers on their path towards the more abundant life that Christ promises and makes possible.”
The book is a wonderful source of spiritual nurture, for both readers and their meetings. Parts of this book spoke to me so deeply that I want to share them more widely here. I’m going to pass on more from this book in future posts.
For instance, in letter number four, titled: “As we reflect on our meetings’ spiritual condition,” Brian writes about “Ministry for and to different conditions” in ways I found very useful as I work with my own meeting to bring my ministries into the life of the meeting. The entire letter, and especially the last paragraph, are an appeal to our meetings to be more proactive in our nurture of ministry, which resonates with my own calling to have more “fire in the Spirit” in the nurture of ministry in our meetings.
I quote Brian in full (page 16–18):
The ministry of the meeting, which includes the words spoken and the silent ministry, and the words or deeds of service or prayer with individuals or groups at other times, is rooted in a listening, loving focus on the actual people gathered and on the One in whom they are gathered.
As you consider the meeting’s condition this year, Friends, listen for the conditions within the community in compassion and honesty. Three conditions that have come particucarly to mind in my exercise are these: the “young” members, of any age, who are new to Friends; the “established”; and the “well-grown in the truth.” Each of these condition has characteristics that may require particular kinds of service to help them forward, and it is good sometimes for a meeting to reflect on whether the ministry is offering what it can under God’s guidance.
In the “young,” that is, those new to Friends, there may be exploration, enthusiasm, receptivity, and a need and desire to learn the foundations of the Quaker path. They need guidance, but not only instruction. They have come to you in curiosity, perhaps, but under that is a restlessness or inquiry, and it is through the witness of your acts and life joined with words of explanation and welcome that they will be helped to see that among you they can find a living path. Inquirers need to feel our humility, but also where we are touched with fire and the Holy Spirit.
In “established Friends,” there is a growth of discipline and order, a maturing exploration of and use of gifts, and a habit of bearing responsibility for the life and support of the meeting. But in this period, there can be an engagement with contradictions and continued mysteries in the understanding of Quakerism. Faith and discoveries that were nourishing and inspiring in the first days among Friends may feel stale or insufficient for the demands now encountered. New resources and opportunities are needed if such active Freinds are to rediscover their spiritual childhood—the place of wonder and gratitude, openness and receptivity. Fire and the Spirit!
Those well grown in the truth have a tested understanding of the value of the diverse paths people can follow as well as the dangers of a mere celebration of diversity. They have an understanding of the pirtfalls and dangers of life in the Spirit, for individuals and meetings, and a sympathy for questioning and doubt. Their expeirence has brought a reliance on the workings of the Lord in many situations, and they have learned to wait and listen; they have seen (or others have seen in them) a growth in tenderness, courage, freedom, and discipline in love and truth. At this stage, though, there are fresh challenges that come from habits long established, the same problems and challenges returning over and over. They can read the indicators of the meeting’s long-term good or ill health and stability, its growth and depth; caring deeply, they can yet feel taken for granted and that their own seeking and spiritual thirst is not seen.
Fire and the Spirit—the baptism is needed at every stage!
People in each of these stages of their spiritual life offer ministry rooted in the questions and findings of that condition, but each stage also has its temptations and problems. In each stage there are times of dryness, or misplaced complacency, of frustration, and of hope. Everyone needs to receive nurture and love, in meeting and out, if their gifts and strengths are to be confirmed and to grow. All need exhortation or inspiration, instruction, reasurance, consolation, gratitude, and challenge—accompaniment in the Spirit as individuals trying to walk in the Light.
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 6: Some Queries
August 26, 2025 § Leave a comment
One of the things I like about the Friends Incubator for Public Ministry, which I posted about on July 27, is its focus on the relationship between the minister and her or his meeting. In particular, both the minister and her or his meeting participate in the fellowship program they are sponsoring.
As an aid for applicants to prepare for their interviews, the Incubator has put together a great set of queries.
I found them very well thought out and extremely useful in helping me reflect on my own ministries. I’ve listed them below, with omissions and revisions to make them more general in scope, more useful to ministers and whatever committee in their meeting has care of ministry (if there is one), and less specific to the Incubator’s needs in the fellowship discernment process. (A few days ago, they already had forty applicants for five fellowships.)
I offer these queries in the hope that others will find them useful, too, and that meetings will feel led to consider how they support their ministers:
Discernment & Leadings
- What is your sense of leading or call?
- How do you know when something is truly a spiritual leading?
- Are there specific ministries, concerns, or experiments that are newly unfolding for you?
Support & Accountability
- Has your meeting helped to test or support your leading or call ? If so, how? If not, do you know why?
- Who has offered you eldering or accompaniment in recent years? What has that looked like?
- What kinds of support do you hope for in your meeting?
- What is the spiritual and relational climate in your meeting right now?
- How do dynamics like conflict, trauma, or trust (or lack of it) shape your ability to move forward in ministry—personally or communally?
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.
Through the Flaming Sword 