Nurturing Spiritual Gifts and Concerns

Toward a Vital Culture of Eldership

Vocal ministry is Quakerism’s signature form of ministry. For some two hundred years, we supported this ministry with a culture of eldership that revolved around recording the ministers. Elders kept a lookout for Friends who were emerging into their ministry; after a time of seasoning and discernment, the meeting would record their gift. 

Beginning in the late-nineteenth century, however, and especially in the twentieth, some yearly meetings laid down the practice of recording ministers and elders, and most meetings reconfigured their culture of eldership from meetings of ministers and elders into committees for worship and ministry. In theory, we moved care for worship and ministry into these new committees, but in reality, we just moved care for worship and excluded ministry. This let any proactive support and oversight of vocal ministry dissolve. We have increasingly thought of spoken ministry as an episodic phenomenon that arises in the moment rather than as a calling that would last some time and that deserves sustained support. We no longer look out for Friends who begin speaking more often than just occasionally, or who speak with Spirit-led depth, so as to support their potential ongoing calling.

Meanwhile, as our concern for a range of social issues has grown, we have increasingly recognized forms of ministry besides vocal ministry. But members often do not think of their callings to peace or earthcare, or whatever, as religious ministries they could take to their meetings for support. Meetings may have committees for peace and social concerns, but such committees are not usually charged with helping their members discern their own calls to witness. We don’t necessarily think of service on these committees as ministry. Nor do our meetings’ worship and ministry committees often know how to support their members’ leadings, or even why they should.

I have experienced this myself. I was actively anti-Christian and anti-Bible when I became a Quaker, and then in 1990, I felt led to write a book of Bible-based Christian earth stewardship. I knew I needed oversight: I was afraid my hostility would undermine my faithfulness, so I went to my meeting for help. At first, they didn’t know what I was talking about. After a second meeting with the ministry and counsel committee, they sort of understood my need, but they still didn’t understand how they could help. I ended up pursuing the leading without my meeting’s support, and I went decades more without support for further leadings and ministries.

How many of our meetings are well-informed about the faith and practice of Quaker ministry? How many of our members and attenders are listening for the Spirit’s call to service? How many see it as an essential aspect of their spiritual lives? How many would come to their meeting with a leading if they had one? How would their meeting respond if they did?

To nurture our vocal ministers—whether they feel they have a calling or not—the meeting needs Friends who will recognize when someone speaks more than occasionally in worship or with exceptional depth and care. It needs Friends who feel equipped to approach such an emerging minister and have a conversation about what their ministry means to them.

Quaker ministry works in three phases, and each of them needs proactive attention and support. These three phases are the following: (1) recognizing a leading, (2) discerning the leading, and (3) pursuing the ministry once a Friend is clear about the path of service.

The first phase, recognizing leadings and calls to ministry, necessitates focused religious education and exploration for both adults and youth: programs that explore what Patricia Loring calls “listening spirituality” in her book of that title, the spirituality that is the foundation of ministry of all sorts. Meetings need programs that cover the history, faith, practice, and experience of Quaker ministry in its traditional forms, so that Friends know what they are “listening” for. These programs give our ministers opportunities to share their experience. And programs that explore what kind of eldership culture our meeting wants would also be valuable. At the very least, worship and ministry committees should teach themselves the faith and practice of Quaker ministry and consider how to foster ministry in the meeting more attentively.

Discerning leadings, the second phase, calls for readiness in the meeting to conduct clearness committees for discernment. Here, Patricia Loring’s 1992 Pendle Hill pamphlet, Spiritual Discernment: The Context and Goal of Clearness Committees, is an invaluable resource. 

The third phase, supporting spiritual gifts, leadings, and ministries, calls for a settled culture of eldership. This “infrastructure” needs both seasoned Friends and clear, ready, and informed processes. It needs members in the meeting who pay attention to the spiritual needs of members and attenders, just as our pastoral care committees keep their ears tuned for other sorts of needs. It benefits from having thought beforehand about what kind of support members can offer.

The ideal time to bring up the nurture of ministry with our members is in their clearness committees for membership. In clearness committees we should explore the character of listening spirituality and Quaker ministry, begin the process of recognizing potential members’ spiritual gifts and concerns, and explore the activities in their lives that might be ground for ministries.

Regarding vocal ministry, much has been written about how to recognize, discern, and answer a momentary prompting to speak in meeting for worship. But for guidance on how to recognize, discern, and answer a sustained calling to vocal ministry, as we experienced in the former days, you have to reach into the past. Samuel Bownas’s A Description of the Qualifications Necessary to a Gospel Minister from 1750 is the classic Quaker resource. 

To nurture our vocal ministers—whether they feel they have a calling or not—the meeting needs Friends who will recognize when someone speaks more than occasionally in worship or with exceptional depth and care. It needs Friends who feel equipped to approach such an emerging minister and have a conversation about what their ministry means to them. For vocal ministry is the school and laboratory of the Spirit for emerging ministers. It is through our vocal ministry that we can learn how to listen to the Spirit’s voice calling us to service and through which we practice discerning whether the voice is from the Spirit or from some other source. And it is in our vocal ministry that we practice staying on the path as we serve.

Here are some queries. Assuming your worship and ministry committee notices when someone seems to have a gift for vocal ministry, do you discuss how you might nurture their gift? Does your committee or meeting believe that some Friends may feel a calling to vocal ministry: some sustained stream of prophetic movement within them? Would your committee and your meeting feel comfortable approaching an emerging vocal minister to see whether they do feel such a calling, would like to deepen their ministry, or just talk about it? And if this Friend did welcome such a conversation, would you be ready to support them in whatever ways they might want?

Providing a minister with support is one of the greatest spiritual gifts a meeting can give a Friend. This support radiates back into the meeting. It enriches the spiritual lives of those who serve on clearness and support committees, and this enrichment benefits the meeting as more and more members rotate into and out of these eldership roles.

Of course, some Friends almost never speak in meeting for worship. But they still may feel led into God’s service in some other ways. (By “God,” I mean the Mystery Reality behind our religious experience: whatever that experience is and however we name it.)

Thus, regarding other forms of ministry, the meeting needs Friends who will notice when someone possibly has undertaken some Spirit-led service, either in the meeting or in the world. Then the meeting needs to know what to do next. These roles would naturally fall to our worship and ministry committees. 

Does your worship and ministry committee know how to conduct a clearness committee for discerning a leading? Do you know how to write a minute of travel or service, or how to convene and oversee a committee for spiritual support for someone who has been called? (The School of the Spirit has excellent resources for this kind of nurture; so does the Quaker Incubator for Public Ministry.) If your yearly meeting still records gifts in ministry, are you familiar with the process?

And is your meeting onboard? Does the meeting enjoy a culture of eldership in which the members know enough of the faith and practice of Quaker ministry to support the committee’s work and to support the ministries that the spirit of the Christ raises up among you? (By the spirit of the Christ, I mean the Spirit that anointed—“christ-ed”—Jesus for his ministry, as described in Luke 4.) Would members who feel called by the Spirit into some service feel encouraged to come to the meeting with their concern, and would they know whom to approach? Would your meeting be there if they did? Does your worship and ministry committee have the meeting’s support for proactive attention to ministry, both vocal and otherwise, or would you face some resistance?

I have often seen Friends and meetings resist this kind of thinking and support. Marty Grundy addresses this concern in her 1999 Pendle Hill pamphlet Tall Poppies. For instance, I have heard Friends say that we are all ministers, so singling someone out is unquakerly. But if we are all ministers, then we all deserve the meeting’s support in whatever service we’ve been called to. But really, we are not all ministers; we are all potential ministers. Any one of us could be called, and presumably will be called, into service at any moment. But we only become ministers when we hear the call to service from the Spirit of the Christ, and we answer it, as Jesus did. Though of course we seek to be servants of Truth and Divine Love at all times and in all situations.

I have also heard Friends say singling an individual out violates the testimony of equality. It sets that person above the rest of us, and it might puff that person up; anybody can sit on the facing bench nowadays. But our ministers need us. We should not leave them bereft of the support they deserve. Moreover, I know from experience that providing a minister with support is one of the greatest spiritual gifts a meeting can give a Friend. Why would we deny them such a blessing? This support radiates back into the meeting. It enriches the spiritual lives of those who serve on clearness and support committees, and this enrichment benefits the meeting as more members rotate in and out of eldership roles.

Bringing a minister under the meeting’s care helps prevent the very thing that Friends who resist this kind of attention seem to fear. Carrying a ministry can be a challenging path, and true ministers know that caring oversight is good for their service. One can, in fact, “step through the traces,” as Friends used to say in former days (I feared I would do so when I felt my first leading.) You can get tangled up in the service or “run past your guide” and get out in front of your calling. The true minister wants someone to help guide them back to the path if they step off it, and the mature meeting wants someone there to help them do that.

Spirit-led eldership is one of the most important roles a Quaker meeting has: providing assistance confidently and lovingly to our ministers. 

But the most important reason for a vital and proactive culture of eldership that I’ve been describing is that the Holy Spirit wants it. That’s what we believe: that there is such a thing as Spirit-led ministry. If that is so, then Spirit-led eldership is one of the most important roles a Quaker meeting has: providing assistance confidently and lovingly to our ministers. Just as individual Friends are called into the Spirit’s service, meetings correspondingly are called into the Spirit’s service, and some Friends are called to the role of “elder.” You can’t have one without the other. 

Well, actually, you can, as I know from experience. But it’s not ideal; it’s not what God wants, or, if you prefer, it’s not being faithful to the movement of the Spirit. That anointing Spirit invites us to care for those Friends who have been called into service, and we should want that, too. We do that by educating our members about it; by paying attention to it; and by supporting it through nurture, discernment, and oversight. This is not about the minister, really; it is about the ministry: it’s about how we are being led into bearing witness to love and truth as individuals, and how our meetings can foster that service.