Baltimore Emergent Church Quaker experiment

My friend Kevin-Douglas emailed recent­ly about a new wor­ship group he’s helped to start in down­town Bal­ti­more. It sounds like some of the oth­er Christ-center wor­ship groups that have been pop­ping up the shad­ow of estab­lished Quak­er meet­ings. It’s con­scious­ly small and home-based, tak­ing place at a non-traditional time with an implic­it Emer­gent Church fla­vor. Expe­ri­enced Friends are involved (I know KD from FGC’s Cen­tral Com­mit­tee for exam­ple) and while it’s formed next to and out of large, active meet­ings, it’s not schismatic. 

I asked KD if I could put his descrip­tion up as a “guest post.’ I’m hop­ing a post here can let more seek­ers and Friends in Bal­ti­more know about it. But beyond that, there’s a def­i­nite small move­ment afoot and I thought Ranter read­ers might be inter­est­ed in the exam­ple (here are a few oth­ers: Laugh­ing Waters and Chat­ta­hoochee (thanks to Bill Samuel for the last link, some of these are indexed in his help­ful Friends Chris­t­ian Renew­al listing).

From KD:

Before R. got sick and even­tu­al­ly died, we had been think­ing of
host­ing an infor­mal meet­ing for wor­ship in the man­ner of Friends at our
house that would be explic­it­ly Christ-centered. We aren’t talking
Chris­t­ian Ortho­doxy here, but rather with the under­stand­ing of all
involved that we come togeth­er to explore our faith through the
teach­ings of Jesus and those who came before and after him.  It would
be Quak­er in that we’d fol­low in the tra­di­tion of Quak­er Christians,
gain­ing from their wis­dom and experience. 

Now, the Spir­it is lead­ing me back to this. 

So, what is going on? 

I
very much appre­ci­ate uni­ver­sal­ism as a world view. I in no way believe
that Chris­tian­i­ty is the only way. I do believe, how­ev­er, that Jesus is
the Way, Truth and the Life.  The Way being one of love and compassion,
of jus­tice and sin­cere seek­ing of that mys­tery that I call God. I
don’t think Jesus was the only one who brought that way, but I do see
his way as lead­ing to God, and that by his Way, we can get to God. It
does­n’t mat­ter to me whether he was or is God; I do see him as a
sacra­ment, a way to God.  For me he is the way to God.  He is liv­ing. I know this experientially.

So
I want to share in this with oth­ers. I want to sit in silence, or sing
in praise, or con­sid­er a query, scrip­ture or word of advice from
Friends past with oth­ers who also want to know God through Christ.  I’m
not con­cerned about the­ol­o­gy.  IT’s about expe­ri­ence for me.  I don’t
mind if those who don’t “know Jesus” come, as I know God can speak
through all.   If those who come and don’t con­sid­er themselves
Chris­t­ian are will­ing to wres­tle with the teach­ings of Jesus and his
ances­tors and his fol­low­ers, then I say WELCOME!  I’m not set on form
either.  I do pre­fer unpro­grammed wor­ship, but I mean that literally: 
that we don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly set a pro­gram, but that there indeed may be
silence or a query, scrip­ture or advice read at the begin­ning of
wor­ship. Per­haps can­dles are lit, maybe even *gasp* incense!  I don’t
feel the need to be bound to our puri­tan roots and yet I feel the
wis­dom of allow­ing the Spir­it to direct the wor­ship is a wis­dom we
should con­tin­ue to fol­low.  I believe in expe­ri­en­tial and experimental
wor­ship. Per­haps we have the Friends hym­nal avail­able and one may feel
led to sing from it and oth­ers can join if they too feel led.  As for
now, it’s been com­plete­ly unpro­grammed wor­ship as one would find in
most Con­ser­v­a­tive Friends meet­ings.   As for com­mu­ni­ty, I hope God will
gath­er togeth­er a com­mu­ni­ty where we do rec­og­nize min­istries and gifts
per­haps in the way that Friends have done so tra­di­tion­al­ly but maybe in
rad­i­cal­ly new ways!   I’m so tired of Evangelical/Liberal/Conservative labels.  Can we just be Friends?

I do so love being Quak­er.  I do so love Jesus.  I hope to find a com­mu­ni­ty where these are wed with­out qualifications.

We meet third Sun­days of every month at a home (Mine right now) from 5 – 6pm and are list­ed in Quak­er Finder:

Down­town Bal­ti­more Wor­ship Group
Christ-centered, unpro­grammed wor­ship is gen­er­al­ly held on the 3rd Sun­day of the month at 5:00 PM in a home. Fol­low link for cur­rent details. 

7 thoughts on “Baltimore Emergent Church Quaker experiment

  1. Nice to read about the new Bal­ti­more wor­ship group. FYI, Laugh­ing Waters Friends Wor­ship Group now has a web­site, where seek­ers and Friends can find much more detail about who we are and how we came to be.
    Blessings,
    Liz Opp, The Good Raised Up

  2. Thanks Craig!, and sure we can use these com­ments as a place to try to come up with a direc­to­ry of these experiments.

  3. Hey Friends
    Work­ing on a web site. We now have to meet at the local Met­ro­pol­i­tan Com­mu­ni­ty church because my liv­ing room can’t hold a dozen peo­ple. We’re begin­ning a month­ly book or Bible study as well.
    please keep us in your prayers!
    KD

  4. Rachel Sta­cy talked about the Bal­ti­more group in her keynote address to the FWCC meet­ing. It was received with much plea­sure and excitement.
    I’d add the extend­ed meet­ing for wor­ship at San Fran­cis­co Friends Meet­ing in Cal­i­for­nia on fifth Sun­days from 9:30am-12:00noon.
    And then Brent Bill and I were just talk­ing about the pos­si­bil­i­ties for a direc­to­ry of wor­ship groups like this.
    Yes, some­thing good (and God­ly) is going on.

  5. Hi Friends,
    Just an update on the site for the wor­ship group. Our first meet­ing at the new site is this Sun­day. Please hold us in the Light! We’re also going to start meet­ing once a month in a café in the Gay­bor­hood for a book study. We thought about doing it in a home until one atten­der remind­ed us that per­haps we should be tak­ing the church to the com­mu­ni­ty instead. So, we shall see what doors open.
    Atten­dance ranges from half a dozen to a dozen. I wish it was a week­ly group!

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