Quaker Vocal Ministry and the Listening Community

I recently felt surprised as I reflected upon words and Quaker spoken ministry in worship. After more than 50 years as a practicing Friend and minister, I realized spoken ministry is not much about words. This article explores the dimensions of my growing awareness towards the place words have in Quaker spoken ministry and the critical role of the listening community. 

Unprogrammed ministries are only oral: spoken and then let go. The speaker is not in charge of the meaning; rather, the words are provided by the Spirit, and the listening congregation receives whatever comes. Unlike traditional Protestant ministers, who supposedly have a special connection to God’s Word, a Quaker minister is one person who carries the Truth and the gospel message; thus, everyone has equal access to that Truth and Light. 

Another dimension of the oral delivery is like a musical performance: it’s momentary, originating within that particular time and place. By implication, the message is significantly ephemeral. It’s said once, and then it’s gone. The message inhabits the present moment. It’s like a piece of music that’s played and then ends, disappearing, except for whatever takeaways that may occur. In most classical music, there’s a score, yet the printed score, of course, is not the music. It’s a guide, but the music depends upon the player or players to make the music: to bring it off the page and into the moment of performance. 

Even with devotional preparation from the speaker, the ministry remains improvised. In the nonpastoral tradition, the Quaker minister does not write out the words of the ministry. Because the ministry comes out of the worshiping silence and because it’s not written out before or after delivery, such speech reflects an embodied, non-cognitive experience, although such speech can contain analytical components. Here’s a passage about Quaker ministry from the 1995 edition of the Britain Yearly Meeting’s Quaker Faith and Practice that reflects this understanding: “All true ministry springs from the reality of experience, and uses our gifts of heart and mind in its expression. But ministry is not the place for intellectual exercise. It comes through us, not from us.” By implication, this ministry finds its way into our hearts and minds; it’s a gift and a channel for the Spirit to be present. 

The main point of unprogrammed oral ministry is to touch the hearts, minds, and souls of participants in worship. Unlike in Protestant groups, the emphasis in ministry is not upon the speaker, but on what the worshipers take away. This emphasis upon the takeaway means that the speaker does not control or direct what others get from the ministry. In fact, the outcomes will be diverse, possess multiple meanings, and be difficult to contain. And what a wonderful yet difficult, complex thing it is for worshipers to be in charge of the meaning of ministry. It’s a pedagogy of inward transformation; the minister prepares Friends to become instruments upon which the Holy Spirit may play and have Its way. Guided by the Inward Teacher, Friends submit to such teaching, turning to the Light and Christ Within. 

I have an illustration about the centrality of the Quaker community’s response to ministry. This example is connected to my experience in “Contemplative Reading Group” sessions at Santa Monica (Calif.) Meeting. A small group meets online for an hour every month, and we have a modified worship-sharing conversation about poems, songs, and prose (recently we met and responded to two poems by Jericho Brown from his Pulitzer-Prize winning book, The Tradition). 

I am amazed by how our handful of Quakers offer personal, contemplative responses to the poems and other readings. Our interchanges draw out participants’ deeply felt experiences, taking us into intense felt senses. It’s a kind of knowing that allows us to be vulnerable, as our responses originate in our hearts, souls, and bodies as if we had entered a zone of flow. The poems become occasions for the participants to share parts of our lives that might be hidden. Most of the time, the conversations strike me as being as creative, original, and revealing as the poems themselves. For me, this is unusual; poetic songs can take us to a deep place in the psyche. 

There’s an overflowing of spontaneous exchanges in the moment. Friends listen intensely, absorbed in the present. We respect one another and don’t necessarily respond or comment about what others share. We allow the music and feeling engendered by the poems to sink into our bodies, souls, and minds. We are carried into an integrated version of embodiment and find ourselves celebrating, listening, and praying. Our hearts are opened, and we are willing to be vulnerable. We find ourselves becoming vessels for the Spirit. We are in the presence of mystery, engaged in an exchange of gifts. 

As with the spoken ministry in silent worship, these contemplative responses are original, spontaneous, and totally in the moment. The words themselves are not prepared or revised: the words come out of the flow and gestalt of the present moment. The meanings of the words or texts are found within the contemplative, spirit-filled conversation. We learn together; we are open to our deepest imagination and bring all of ourselves to these moments. As with the vocal ministry, then, there’s a multiplicity of meanings. Importantly, the speaker is not in charge of what the texts mean. There are multiple, diffuse, indirect meanings that spread through the worshipful bodies and their knowing.

For years, I have been moved by Rex Ambler’s The End of Words: Issues in Contemporary Quaker Theology, published in 1994. In one section, “Images of God,” Ambler summarizes the potential for a Quaker theology beneath the words: 

Theology is for us, then, not an interpretation of authoritative words, but a shared reflection of what we do and what we experience. But this is the half-truth. The other half is that to sustain ourselves as a community, and in society at large, we need to communicate with one another. 

These comments about shared reflection and communication among us matter. It provides hope and the potential for transformation, guided by the presence of the Spirit and absorbed into the moment. We are making up the meanings as we come together, listen deeply, and care for one another. Our bodies and souls resonate in the presence of the Living Spirit. We become open to the flow of energy in a theology of the immediate presence of the Divine in the midst of our lives. There’s an urge toward wholeness as we are immersed in our intense listening. Our bodies and souls shake with the presence of the Holy Spirit. 

I would like to end with an illustration about what some Friends took away from ministry in a workshop that explored the meanings of the Quaker gathered meeting. During the midst of the pandemic, 25 Friends met online to immerse themselves in worship and worship sharing about what it might mean to prepare for the gathered meeting. Sponsored by Ben Lomond Quaker Center in northern California, participants entered into a variety of worship spaces, and near the end of the nearly two days, we asked participants to offer reflections about the worship and the workshop. 

“We are together seeking the Spirit,” one Friend said.

Another participant commented that “God is in the room; give up judging.”

“There were long periods of worship, and I dreamed about birds,” another person said. 

Another participant observed: “I need the corporate community to hold the ambiguity—like the struggles in Fox.”

“There’s a sacredness in everything, and we need a spiritual center to survive,” said another Friend.

Finally, another participant reflected: “We live in multiplicity and wholeness, and we can appeal to mystery, and that’s wonderful.”

Participants responded to how the Spirit moved within them. I was struck by the multiple responses and meanings. Friends commented on the need for a spiritual center to increase the possibility that the worship would be gathered. I felt that many of the takeaways were drenched by the presence of the Holy Spirit as it worked through bodies and souls.