Quaker rewnewal: Worship
Craig Barnett continues his series of reflections on contemporary Quakerism
If the Quaker way has something unique to offer the world, perhaps it is the experience of a gathered Meeting for Worship. This is what Gerald Hewitson has described as:
a Meeting where the silence is as soft as velvet, as deep as a still pool; a silence where words emerge, only to deepen and enrich that rich silence, and where Presence is as palpable and soft as the skin of a peach; where the membrane separating this moment in time and eternity is filament-fine. (Journey into life, Swarthmore Lecture book 2013)
Gathered worship is the living power of the Quaker way, with an amazing capacity to heal, renew and transform our lives and communities. This depth of worship is a rare occurrence in some of our Meetings because the disciplines of listening and speaking that enable and sustain it are not being practised.
Worship is a movement of the whole being towards a spiritual reality that is ultimately mysterious. It requires the commitment of our whole selves – mind, heart, body and will – to something greater than our own values, thoughts and preferences. It is easy to keep ourselves at the centre, making worship into another activity of the conscious mind. The discipline of listening requires us to let go of our need to be in control. It asks us to open ourselves to a wordless encounter with the inward source of life and power – a sense of ‘Presence’ beyond thoughts and concepts. In that place we become receptive to the ‘promptings of love and truth’ that may arise to teach us, and that might require us to offer spoken ministry.
The discipline of speaking means discerning whether our intention to offer spoken ministry is a response to a specific leading of the Spirit. It asks us to relinquish the natural urge to speak from the needs of the ego. We have to learn to speak only when our message arises from the deeper place of responsiveness to spiritual reality.
When we minister from this place our simplest words have a special power to draw others into awareness, to encourage, to console or to challenge.
Where the disciplines of listening and speaking are not practised the Meeting for Worship can no longer function. Although the outward form may appear the same, such a Meeting has become something else. In these Meetings, spoken ministry tends toward political discussion or summaries of radio and television programmes. Friends tend to tolerate the messages of each other in a spirit of generous nonjudgement, rather than embracing them as words with the power to speak to our hearts.
Elders have a particular responsibility for reminding Friends of the disciplines involved in Quaker worship. In practice, elders’ willingness to do this is severely undermined by the insistence of many Friends that worship and ministry are purely subjective and not subject to community standards. For many years we have tried to avoid conflict within our Meetings by evading mutual accountability for the quality of our worship. We have not expected new Friends and attenders to learn the disciplines of Quaker worship. Instead, we have encouraged each other to reinterpret the practice of worship wherever it conflicts with our own preferences and assumptions.
If a Quaker community is to exist as something more than a social club for like-minded people it needs to be rooted in the experience of gathered worship. If our Meetings for Worship lack this depth of encounter, perhaps it is up to us to help renew the practice of worship. We can do this through our commitment to the disciplines of listening and speaking. We can encourage learning, teaching and sharing of our understandings of worship. We can support more active and courageous eldering, and we can encourage each other in a commitment to personal spiritual practice that makes regular space in our daily lives for stillness and reflection.
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