In the Quaker religion, adherents believe that a higher power can speak through them. We asked Quakers what it’s actually like to experience this.
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- Read Friends Journal to see how other Friends describe the substance of Quaker spirituality
- Quaker Voluntary Service has opportunities for young women and men interested in social and personal transformation through service work and living in Quaker community.
Discussion Questions:
- Micah Bales talks about vocal ministry being a “pearl” that starts out as a bit of spiritual grit that gets refined throughout the worship process. Do you identify with this experience? What is some grit that you can remember turning into a pearl in worship?
- Have you felt that “electric feeling” that Callid Keefe-Perry says happens when he gives vocal ministry?
- Christopher Sammond lists some of the excuses he comes up with when he has been led to say something particularly challenging in worship. What are some of the excuses you tell yourself when you want to get out of what seems to be a leading? What do you do to try to stay faithful?
Transcript:
Callid Keefe-Perry
In the Liberal tradition of Quakerism, at least—although it’s present in other places as well—we say we don’t have a priest or a pastor. We don’t have a human priest or pastor. The impetus—the power that was really exciting, and George Fox (one of the founders of the Religious Society of Friends) really says in a number of places—what we worship, when we enter into worship, is God. And God gives us, as in the days of the apostles, a word via the office of prophet. So we’re sitting in Meeting for Worship underneath the highest priest.
Faith Kelley
Waiting worship is a time which we sit and focus on the possibility that God is speaking to us. It’s an experience that’s really unlike any other experience I’ve had.
Receiving the Call to Speak
Zac Dutton
The telltale sign of when you’re sitting in Meeting for Worship and are supposed to give vocal ministry, which is standing up and giving a message that others in the room hear, is the quickening of the heartbeat.
Christie Duncan-Tessmer
It feels a little bit shaky and flowy, maybe. I can just feel it moving through me.
Zac Dutton
…and the feeling like you’re in sixth grade again and you’re running for your first office in the student council and its the first time you’re going to stand up and speak to a group of people. It’s that kind of hyper-anxiety.
Micah Bales
Usually there’s something that feels like it’s crystallizing in me. I’d almost describe it as maybe a sped-up version of what a clam might experience when they get that bit of sand stuck inside and over time it turns into a pearl. Of course usually we only have an hour for that sand to turn into a pearl in the Meeting for Worship, but God puts some spiritual sand in my heart and I wrestle with it. It may just be some sand that I need to wrestle with and its for me, but sometimes it turns into a pearl in a way where I just have to share it, I can’t keep the pearl to myself and it’s clearly been given for the whole community.
Discerning the Call
Victoria Greene
I think I’ve given a message twice. My concern was this, and I’ve asked a few members, “how do you know that’s God talking to you, how do you know it’s not just you?” And they say, “well, you listen to the still, small voice,” but the still, small voice could be your still small voice. Anyway, I always had a like, “Is this really God speaking to me?”
Faith Kelley
I’m kind of an over-sharer sometimes, and so I need to really sit with it, because I’ve had that experience of God giving me something and it’s just for me, and it actually is usually just for me. And so I have to be careful to only stand up when I feel like God has called me to share that.
Christopher Sammond
I am very good at subtly talking myself out of a leading. And then I can say, “Oh, the leading has gone away. I don’t need to rise and speak.” I can say, “I spoke last week and I shouldn’t speak again,” or, “This isn’t a topic that’s going to go over well in the Meeting,” or, “That’s too close to the bone, I’d rather not share that.” Unless I go to a place of complete faithfulness and say, “I will share whatever I am led to share,” I can make myself feel like the leading has gone away. And then just live with a mild discomfort. So frequently my process is one of having to wrestle with my resistance to speaking and then coming to that place of genuine faithfulness where I will say anything that I am feeling led to say and to share that.
Delivering the Message
Micah Bales
And so if I’ve been sitting with this bit of grit and it’s turned into a pearl and it’s ready to be shared, then I’ll stand up and deliver whatever it is that the Lord has given me to share.
Callid Keefe-Perry
When I give vocal ministry and really feel like it’s coming from a place beyond me, I feel electric. I feel like something is jarring all of my nerves in a way that clears my sinuses, like my mental sinuses. And sometimes when people give powerful vocal ministry that feels like there’s this real big opening, and there’s this piece of kingdom happening, I’ll get that electric feeling even though it’s not coming out of my mouth.
Faith Kelley
It never comes out exactly like how it was when I was wrestling with it interiorly, but I try to be cautious and careful and slow in my speaking so that I don’t say something that God hasn’t given me. I want to make sure that I have stripped away all the extra, superfluous stuff.
Brian Drayton
One of the things that I look for when I listen to someone speak in Meeting is not the content or the rhetorical content because that’s going to vary. The first thing that I try to understand is: am I feeling that, at the bottom, the message is the love of God?
Faith Kelley
I think the other tricky part is to sort of stop and sit down and the right moment. It’s really easy to keep rambling on once you’ve stood up or to try to tie it with this neat little bow and make a conclusion, but I think the important thing to remember is that when I sit down after giving vocal ministry, the worship hasn’t stopped. It’s not my job to – well, I grew up in Evangelical Friends – so it’s not my job to make the alter call. God is doing that in people’s hearts.
Su Penn
The times when I have felt the most like I really was giving a message that came through me from God, I don’t necessarily have a clear memory of what I said. I don’t necessarily say what I planned to say and I often sit down then with a feeling of great relief, but I wouldn’t necessarily be able to verbally reconstruct what I said because of that sense of being almost a conduit for it rather than it coming from my head, where I shaped it and made it nice and put it out there and can claim it as such a pretty piece of talking. It’s something different.
Faith Kelley
It’s not about, “I have this intellectual understanding of what the truth is, and let me talk about it for a while.” It’s about being a conduit for God, about being a conduit for the Spirit’s work and whatever message God has in that particular moment for that particular community.
A New Priesthood
Wess Daniels
One of the pieces I think that we find most important today, or at least we ought to find most important today, is that God can speak to anyone and does speak to all kinds of people, often people who we haven’t sort of sanctioned as people who God speaks through. With the work of Christ there is a new priesthood. We don’t need to have a particular priest to sort of mediate for us.
interesting. I come from an organized ritualized background. If someone asked me if I were a Christian I would say yes. Yet, I always felt a direct relationship with God and wondered why others felt they could not speak directly to God (or higher being or whatever label you are comfortable with) and need an in-between interpreter yet alone a fourth party in the form of a priest.
the more I see this series the more I realize why my ancestors were Quakers and why they were persecuted for their beliefs.
Am I the only one or are there others that can have a direct conversation with a higher being?
The audio is disappearing every few seconds and I have to manually get it going again. Can this be corrected from your end?
Hi Sally!
I’m afraid its on your end! Have you checked the wiring on your audio? It sounds like you might have a short somewhere.
Further troubleshooting tips here.
thanks
Jon
Thanks, Jon, for this one. I enjoyed it…it made me smile. And Howard: I grew up Catholic, and I always talked to God. I did not feel that I needed a “priest,” although I had one whom I would call my “spiritual father” (as opposed to biological father), and I loved him fiercely. He encouraged my direct spiritual connections. My grandmother, a fervent Catholic, also had direct spiritual connections, and used the priest to access the Catholic traditions. I would say, though, that her connection to Spirit was direct. People did look a little askance at me when I would say things like, “Well, I’m not sure that that’s the message I’m getting from God…” or, “If God is with it, it will work out.” One of my brothers said once, “Oh – You and God!”
When I first found, and as I have grown into, Quakersim, the everyday ordinariness of being in relationship and talking with God has brought me much pleasure. Nobody thinks it’s weird that I talk to God, and that God talks back. How cool is that?!!
(smile) I meant “Quakerism” – not “Quaker-sim.”
I’m a UK Friend from Peterborough in Cambridgeshire and enjoy these weekly videos. One of my favourite sayings is that “the ministry of the tea towel is just as important as vocal ministry!” The gift of vocal ministry is not given to that many people. It’s how we live out our relationship with God in every aspect of our lives that’s important. Love and blessings to all you Ffriends in America.
I am so pleased that you have started this “Quaker Speaks” as there is no meeting near my location, so this gives me insight and a connection with Quakers. Thanks!
Callid describes an “electric” feeling during vocal ministry. This rapture also happens during what some denominations call “witnessing”. I was raised in a church that practiced this and as a child I was very uncomfortable with it and even had a degree of dislike for those present, including my family. I now recognize that then, I was expected and all but required to stand and praise God whether I felt like it or not.
When I am at Meeting, that silent worship can remain silent if I wish has added spice to any vocal ministry so that if I am lead to speak, this electric feeling, not really being completely in control of what I am saying, and being unable to not rise and speak has given me an understanding of the fervor of the beliefs of my childhood co-worshipers.
One thing that was in common was the strong knowledge that no priest, or even the local pastor, was needed to establish a communion with God.
It felt warm listening to differing views about no need for the priest or pastor. Years ago, I gave a sermon in a Methodist Church and later received ordination through an Evangelical Ministries. Some how, it never seemed right. My place in reaching out to God, is for me and in uniting with others, not controlling a message given to others.
I have had the honor to know people in those types of positions. In running Teen-Rec Night and coaching the Marauders (a softball team), working with Father Richard Zavacki (RAZ) was a genuine pleasure. Help received from through work for Reverend Vernon McDormand, Disciples of Christ, came at a needed time for my wife, Sandi (deceased) and I.
Plus, many other churches and religions have been a part of my life. It led me to a Universal belief (not Unitarian) for all mankind. As in this presentation, we each have our touch with God through inward or inner light. The Religious Society of Friends provides an acceptance of finding and using the ultimate spirit from within and reaching out to and/or with others. My basic reason for becoming a member of Quaker Universalist Fellowship.
Blessing to each of your dearest loving souls. Your message is presently on the right Track. Congratulations to all you dearest souls who are feeling the call to speak and share in your service. There will be an increasing number of you doing this no matter what inhibitions one may experience such as being shy. Everyone will receive consciously Divine messages being touched within each soul Divine Love.
The Royal Priesthood of Christ is being awakened in every earthly family member. The New Priesthood is in the heart and hands of each individual person to use officially this year. Every age on Mother Planet will have increasing access to this Divine Love and receive full conscious insights of knowledge kept from all previously from the past. “All that is hidden will be Revealed” Love is increasing while The Royal Priesthood is inflamed with the True Light of Divine Love.
This year 2014 started the New Dispensation of Divine Love. We left the Dispensation of Grace Period (New Testament) and prior to that, was the Dispensation of the Law Period (Old Testament).
Christ and His Legions throughout the Galaxy are coming to Mother Earth to make for the NEW earth. HEAVEN IS APPROACHING SWIFTLY TO CELEBRATE HUMANITY’S VICTORY IN OVERCOMING DARK FORCES ALLOWING THEIR LIGHT TO SHINE WITH THE PURE DIVINE LOVE.
CONGRATULATIONS MY DEAR BROTHERS AND SISTER. I AM HAPPY FOR ALL THIS AND MUCH MORE THAT IS COMING OUR WAY. INVITE ALL TO WAKE UP FOR THESE EXCITING TIMES.
We have used this video and the first one on silent worship in Meeting for Learning, and they have sparked wonderful discussions. Thank you for producing this series.