Living eldership

Edward Hoare welcomes an initiative to enhance the spiritual life of Meetings

by Edward Hoare 31st October 2014

Elders are the arteries through which the spiritual life of the Yearly Meeting flows. Long neglected, they have, I believe, become hardened and thus restrict the flow of life.

When Alastair Heron was clerk to Yearly Meeting elders he used his position to lead a group to clarify and publish a work on the subject of Quaker Concern. When his successor found that in Quaker faith & practice there was no role for Yearly Meeting elders, he recommended laying the position down. At that time it was also the custom to hold a separate gathering of elders during Yearly Meeting. In the years after Alastair’s term of office that custom lacked direction and was also laid down.