Introduction
This chapter considers five customary forms of worship used
by Friends. To focus on form is to focus on the outward, but in fact these
practices were developed to make the largest space possible for the inward.
They work against our habits of mind and our pleasure in external stimulation.
They work to surrender initiative to the Spirit. Sitting with several people in
a designated place for an hour or so will not produce a meeting for worship,
but in Friends’ experience, gathering together, waiting quietly, and listening
for that “still small voice” is an essential part our life together in the
Light. Any form can be empty of Presence, and the Presence can fill any form it
wishes. Friends in Intermountain Yearly Meeting worship without a program
to open the individual and the community to God’s immediate and creative
possibility.
Friends’ practices and processes rest on social and
mystical[1]
understandings of human nature: the individual always stands simultaneously in
relation to the Spirit and to others, and it is through the Spirit that we are
most intimately related to our fellow human beings. Remembered and looked for,
the Spirit can gather us and lift us into creative unity.
Friends have applied the term worship to several
practices in which Friends, singly or together, try to stand in the Presence.
This chapter considers the meeting for worship, worship by individuals, worship
in the home, the meeting for worship for business, and worship sharing. For
many Friends, service is a form of worship as well, especially when a concern
has been laid upon them. Although service is an intrinsic part of Friends’
practice, nevertheless this chapter looks at those forms of worship in which we
step aside from our daily lives and focus ourselves inward.
In 1676, Robert Barclay wrote, “True and acceptable
worship of God stems from the inward and unmediated moving and drawing of his
own Spirit. It is not limited by places, times, or persons.”[2] Later, he adds,
We have certain times and places in which we diligently
meet together to wait upon God. . . . We consider it necessary for the people
of God to meet together as long as they are clothed in this tabernacle. We
concur with our persons, as well as our spirits, in believing that the
maintenance of a joint and visible fellowship, the bearing of an outward testimony
for God, and the sight of the faces of one another are necessary. When these
are accompanied by inward love and unity of spirit, they tend greatly to
encourage and refresh the faithful.[3]
Friends try to find a way to live in constant awareness of
the “moving and drawing” of the Spirit. Each form considered in this chapter
represents a possibility for a meeting of spirit, body, context, and purpose.
Each practice has its own way of opening participants to a sense of the “inward
and unmediated” Presence. Each practice requires of its participants a certain
kind of attention, a certain decorum, and a certain
discipline.
Meeting for Worship: Listening and
Waiting
Silence is the bowl in which ministry is served.
Leslie Stephens, 2005
Friends find the center of their life together in the
meeting for worship.
Although Friends worship any time the Spirit moves them
to, they set aside specific times and places to gather for worship as a
community. Meeting for worship is a public act. “Bearing an outward testimony
for God” has not always been legal, but Friends have never held meeting for
worship in secret. All present may participate fully, as the breath of God
blows where God wills. Even when Friends disowned people[4], the disowned were not excluded from
worship.
Meeting for worship begins the moment
someone—anyone—begins to “center down.” Gradually the silence enfolds all
present in communion with the Spirit and each other. In the silence, we journey
into that inward stillness where even our thoughts are gone, and we wait. Some
Friends, responding to the movement of the Spirit, may be led to speak out of
the silence. The meeting ends when someone, usually preselected,
determines that the meeting has ended and greets his or her neighbors by
shaking hands. In our busy times, this generally happens about one hour after
the start of the meeting for worship, although
those who are sensitive to the movement of the Spirit do more than simply check
the clock when bringing the meeting to its official end.
In Silence …
The earliest Friends waited because they believed that the
only worship that counted was worship that God actively inspired—the inward and
unmediated moving and drawing of God’s own Spirit of which Barclay speaks.
Although Friends today understand that there is merit in different forms of
worship, our unprogrammed[5]
practice teaches us to be open and vulnerable in the face of the Spirit.
In worship we have our neighbors to right and left,
before and behind, yet the Eternal Presence is over all and beneath all.
Worship does not consist in achieving a mental state of concentrated
isolation from one’s fellows. But in the depth of common worship it is as if we
found our separate lives were all one life, within whom
we live and move and have our being.
Thomas Kelly, 1938 [6]
Friends have never regarded [worship] as an individual activity.
People who regard Friends Meetings as opportunities for meditation have failed
to appreciate this corporate aspect. The waiting and listening are activities
in which everybody is engaged and produce spoken ministry which helps to
articulate the common guidance which the Holy Spirit is believed to give the
group as a whole. So the waiting and listening is corporate also. This is why
Friends emphasize the ‘ministry of silence’ and the importance of coming to
meeting regularly and with heart and mind prepared.
John Punshon, 1987 [7]
In the stillness of the meeting, the Spirit brings us
messages. Sometimes these messages are for us alone; sometimes they are meant
to be spoken. A spoken message may be meant for the community. It may be intended to reach the heart of a single person. It may be
the seed for further ministry, or it may stand alone.
People who give vocal ministry seldom know the precise
purpose of their message—they only know they must speak. Conversation among
Friends about vocal ministry often turns quickly to the signs one follows in
making a decision about speaking and to the inadequacy of any signs to confer
certainty. In the first years, Quakers “trembled before the Lord,” and many
still tremble today. Some feel a specific kind of anxiety, a jab in the ribs.
Others know it is time to speak when the message arrives with perfect calmness.
For some, there is an analytical cast to their final decision, whereas others
say, “If I have to ask, the message isn’t for sharing.” Waiting is often
involved; if the meeting ends before the right moment comes, perhaps the
message was not meant to be given. The message may come again and again with
greater insistence each time. Some Friends have bottled up the urge to speak
only to have someone else in the meeting give the same message.
As the message is spoken, the experience continues. One’s
voice may change. The body may feel different. Friends have stood up to speak
having no idea what they were meant to say. Others have begun with a carefully
worked out plan and ended with words coming from somewhere else. Sometimes the
command also comes to stop. Ministers often speak of the sense of peace that
descends on them when they feel their ministry has been given according to the
Spirit. They also speak of the discomfort that comes when they have outrun
their guide.[8]
Sometimes ministers hear from others that they were touched by the words they
spoke; it is well to remember then that the ministry was the Spirit’s—not
theirs.[9]
Vocal ministry requires practice. Recognizing the signs
is a matter of discernment. According to Patricia Loring, “Discernment is
the faculty we use to distinguish the true movement of the Spirit to speak in
meeting for worship from the wholly human urge to share, to instruct, or to
straighten people out.”[10]
Be ready to be flexible! Writing of his own growth as a minister, Lloyd Lee
Wilson[11]
recalled a time when he moved from being a rock in meeting (“Here I am, Lord,
but you are going to have to blow me away before I speak today”) to trusting
God and his own relationship with the Spirit enough to become something like a
fruit tree (“My Master has planted me in good soil, pruned me, and sent the sun
and rain in order than I might bear fruit—here it is”).
After someone speaks, the meeting returns to silence,
waiting for further movement of the Spirit. Without the active support of
prayerful silence, speech in meeting is disconnected from the Spirit and not
rooted in the community.
Inappropriate ministry is another topic that comes up in
conversation among Friends about vocal ministry. Each Friend seems to have his
or her own example, so we remind ourselves that the Spirit does not always tell
us what we want to hear, speak to us in pleasing tones, use correct grammar, or
speak through people we like. As John Punshon says,
. . .
