Though many Quaker meetings happen in silence, there is a distinct feeling when a meeting really “goes there.” What can we do to encourage that experience? We talk with Friends from New England Yearly Meeting about how to deepen Quaker meeting for worship.
Resources:
- Subscribe to QuakerSpeak so you never miss a video
- Read Friends Journal to see how other Friends describe the substance of Quaker spirituality
- Learn more about the life and ministry of New England Quakers at NEYM.org
- Find out how Quakers are assisting military personnel stationed in 11 states
- Learn about the rich diversity of Quakers worldwide with FWCC.
- Work for peace with justice with AFSC.
Discussion Questions:
- Debbie Humphries opens the video by saying, “Sometimes our silence is silence, and sometimes it’s ‘gathered.’” Is this your experience? What does a deep meeting for worship feel like to you?
- What have you noticed makes for a deep worship experience for your meeting? What are the contributing factors?
Transcript:
Debbie Humphries: Sometimes our silence is silence, and sometimes it’s “gathered.” And when it’s gathered, sometimes there’s messages, and sometimes there are not messages, but there’s a different quality in the room, that is alive.
How to Deepen Quaker Meeting for Worship
Brian Drayton: When our meeting has tried to, has grappled with, the question of how to deepen its worship when we’re in a dry spell, a thing that has worked more than once is to take a deep breath and to ask each other—set aside some time and ask each other—what we mean by deep worship. What are we missing? What are we longing for? What do we mean by worship? And any Friend will tell you that if you get into that conversation, you’ll hear really wonderful stuff and really surprising stuff.
What is Deep Worship?
Roger Vincent Jasaitis: Deep worship in the Quaker meeting is about possibility. It’s the possibility of the Divine breaking in. And in order for that to happen, there’s a certain level of openness that has to be there.
Abby Matchette: When I feel I’m in deep worship, I feel like my feet are grounded, as if in, like, the sand; I’m on the ocean shore, and the sand has really sucked my feet in but the waves are continuing to crash at my waist or chest and that crashing—that uncertainty—my feet are just grounded.
Brian Drayton:There’s a sense of freedom, and openness, and complete safety. It starts, I think, with a feeling of my moving out of a sense of my own quietedness to a real awareness of the other people in the room.
Honor Woodrow: One of the things that I value so much about Quakerism in particular is the way in which I think that we are all on this journey together and that we can hear God more clearly when we’re in worship together. So I think I come for communion with the other people of the meeting and looking for guidance and wisdom in how to most fully do the work of God the rest of my week.
Greg Williams: And maybe you’re not thinking about anything in particular, but you just have this peace, this calm, this sense that God is with me, Spirit is with me, Christ is with me—however one wants to name the Divine. And you’re quite comfortable just sitting there. And there are some days they start shaking hands and you’re like, “Oh, that was quick.”
Holding Care of Meeting
Roger Vincent Jasaitis: In Putney Friends Meeting, we have a custom of having somebody host the meeting, which is basically closing the meeting, but also being a worshipping presence during the meeting, even before the meeting begins. Many times, Friends will come and sit and ground themselves, and act as an example for Friends walking in that now is the time to settle.
Greg Williams: So if you have care of meeting you’re sort of holding the gathered meeting as your ministry. I’m holding everybody in prayer. I’m focused on the community.
Cultivating Vocal Ministry
Callid Keefe-Perry: There are times in Fresh Pond where there’s vocal ministry that kind of, like, swoops out of the corner, and I wasn’t ready for it, and it makes me go “uh-oh.” And then there’s the response to say, “Oh, I’ve got some work to do.” But I think that’s part of what the power is in that meeting. It’s not just a quiet gathering. It’s the fact that we expect, and then experience, that sometimes the words we’re given are bigger than us.
Pat Moyer: I think the key to the deepening worship part is letting the messages sink into the silence and letting the whole meeting begin to digest it. It allows the group of people to begin to sink into the spiritual realm and absorb whatever has been said in their own way. We’re not really listening—we’re listening to each other, but we’re listening to God through each other.
Honor Woodrow: I think it’s really important to talk about the vocal ministry that happens in meeting for worship. I think particularly when people who are giving vocal ministry are able to talk to one another about it and to talk about the experience of “What was that like? How did you know that you were supposed to speak? How did you know when to stop speaking? How did you know when was the right time to speak? Did you feel that you were faithful in your speaking?” Because I think that helps us to understand for ourselves what vocal ministry feels like, and what it looks like, and how to develop that as a skill.
Deepening Your Own Spiritual Practice
Debbie Humphries: When I think about a depth of worship, it starts with every individual. And if you are struggling with it and hungering for something deeper, the first place to start is with your own spiritual practice. My own experience is that we are hungry and we’re all waiting and jumping in—diving in. There’s a wealth and a richness there.
Abby Matchette: I think there’s just, like, an acknowledgement in knowing that my personal spiritual practice greatly influences and deepens my worship in meeting, and that if I’m able to have those times individually with God, within community, and when I’m one-on-one with someone, that those three aspects really create a deepening worship.
Other Ways of Deepening Worship
Debbie Humphries: Some of the things we’ve done include having a period of “joys and concerns” so there is a definite space for people who feel a need to speak but whose messages may not rise to the level of ministry.
Callid Keefe-Perry: If you want to talk about deepening meeting for worship you have to ask: “Is the Gospel present?” Well, you don’t have to use that language, but: “Is there good news, and is there power here?” And I want to say, if you want to really talk about deepening worship, blow the lid off of what it looks like and seek after the power, do whatever you need to do to get after that power. That’s what’ll deepen it. And it’ll look different in Poughkeepsie, it’ll look different in urban Detroit, it’ll look different in a worship group somewhere tucked up in Alaska, but that’s what you want to do. If you want to deepen worship, go after the Power of God, and keep playing with stuff until you feel like you touch it. And then do that more.
The views expressed in this video are of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Friends Journal or its collaborators.
The last speaker mentioned “going for the power” of the Spirit. I resonate with that (if I understand his point) but the tone struck me as a bit manipulative, as if it is “something that we do” rather than experiencing inwardly the Spirit “doing it to us”, or “coming among us.” (I realize semantics gets in the way here.) My Quaker experience of silence is one of “waiting upon the Spirit”, and being “surprised” by the gift of the Living Presence among us, always, always, by God’s Love and Grace.
What an excellent video! —one of the best of the many I’ve yet seen! It always slightly amazes me (a member of Cambridge Area Meeting in the UK —and I know it shouldn’t amaze me as I went to a Chicago meeting which was really very similar to mine in Peterborough) that you American Quakers say the same sorts of things in pretty much the same sorts of ways as we do here. It’s kinda very reassuring in some way! But I really loved this video, especially Callid Keefe-Perry at the end! Via con Dios Callid!
A nicely done video, as these all are.
I wonder what would happen if you say down with eight or ten Friends from the first 200 years from our history and asked them that question. What would they say? What would it show us about what we are missing here?
We could of course do this with quotations from their writings, but then we’d be in grave danger of selecting those things that reflect our own prejudices and beliefs.
My most powerful and grounded experiences of Meeting for Worship have been when I am in company with other Friends who have a shared understanding, as early Friends did, that the Inward Light which searches out the depths of our being and shines forward into the darkness of the future is not a vague and idiosyncratic inner LED but the Word through whom the universe is created, made flesh in, well, you-know-who. My own worship is deepest when I am not just waiting, but waiting for a personal encounter who loves me and all those around me, wants to help us clean out the junk in our inner basements, and has serious work for us to do, if we are willing to surrender our inner chaos to our redeemers care, set aside our personal agendas, and accept that serious work.
I think it helps the quality of our worship together if, as Friends enter the worship space, I individually and by name invite God to provide what that person needs. I used to pray for what I thought they needed, and found worship left me totally exhausted!! So, I try to let go the outcome of praying for individuals, and just let God figger it out for me. I notice that when worship begins, often there’s a living sense to the silence, as if Friends Get There almost immediately, when I simply ask that they receive what they need.
(That’s Champaign, Illinois. Sometimes the cybernet decides what I shoulda said without consulting me!)
The chirpy background music diminished my experience. I often tweet the QuakerSpeak videos. I couldn’t bring myself to do so, even though the QuakerSpeakers are excellent.
The woman’s description at 1:33 said it so well, rooted in the ocean sand is about as close to organic rootedness i can come. And the waves *dependent upon the energy of the participants and the synergy birthed from their cooperative intention is very much like the waves…Where they’re felt is in direct relation to my immersion.
Peace and Joy in the Moment of Remembrance, joni
This is a public apology to Jon Watts, QuakerSpeak, and Friends Journal.
My complaint about the “chirpy background music” in my comment above must have been puzzling to Jon—because he added no such thing to the video.
There is no “chirpy background music” on the excellent video.
The music was, unbeknownst to me, coming from an online Scrabble game that was open on my computer in another window. Since I never play Scrabble with my speakers on, I had never heard it before.
I hope never to hear it again. It’s awful.
Jon, I’m very sorry for ever thinking you could have been responsible for such a thing.
I will now retweet the QuakerSpeak .
No worries, Carol! Identifying the source of audio in your browser can be confusing. Thanks for the clarification. – Jon