One of the distinctive qualities of my Friends meeting is that there is a lot of vocal ministry, especially for such a small group (we average about 10 – 20 people depending on time of year and schedules). It’s doesn’t feel “popcorny,” the mildly derogative Quaker term for messages that come one after another in rapid fire succession. There is ample time left between messages and they often have the kind of unintentional synchronicity that is one sign of “a gathered meeting.”
There are occasional Sundays in which we’ll spend the whole worship in silence. It’s usually quite sweet. When we break worship, our clerk will acknowledge that special feeling but then say with a gentle definitiveness that Quaker worship should always have ministry and that there should always be something from the Bible. What our clerk has done is set the expectation that ministry is normal and easy. We’ve had worship in which half of the people gathered have spoken.
I’ve been trying to understand this approach. See, I’m someone who tends to overthink ministry and I’m not alone. Some Friends have gone to the trouble to create elaborate flow charts, a multi-step checklist to determine whether a message rising in our hearts is one we should speak aloud. Seriously, how is anyone expected to get to “Speak!” in under an hour’s time?
There’s perhaps even more pressure in Friends meeting with programming. There’s often the expectation that the minister will be trained and credentialed and their sermons constructed the week before over many hours. I appreciate this sort of lecture format and get a lot from them but the bar to participation is incredibly high.
I was talking recently with Chris Stern, a seasoned minister from Middletown Meeting in Lima, Pa.; I regularly attended there for awhile circa 2006. He’s going to be giving a talk at Cropwell in a few weeks and I was trying to explain to him what I’ve been experiencing.
I think what it boils down to is a confidence that God (the Holy Spirit, the Inward Light) is present in our worship. And of course that’s true. God is everywhere, all the time: “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.“ If we expect that the Spirit is present, we should also expect it to speak to us and through us while we sit together. We can expect a nudge from the Inward Christ to rise and give ministry.
Vocal ministry can be an expected miracle. The bar to participation can be just our faithfulness.