The Communal Power of Meeting for Worship

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Transcript:

Abel:

This meeting for worship is coming together with other people, with open mind, heart, and being there to listen to what God is going to share with us or to tell us.

Alicia:

Quakers meeting for worship is Quakers gathering together to connect to the light or to God or to the Spirit, as they define it. Quakers don’t call it a church because George Fox, who’s one of the founders of Quakerism, said you can meet God anywhere. It doesn’t have to be a church that they decided to call it a meeting house.

Joseph:

I don’t have all these rituals to do. Like in most church Christian churches. Well, you’ve got to say certain prayers where you have to sing certain songs. It’s the direct, unmediated experience of the presence of the divine. And I’m there trying to maintain conscious contact with the God of my understanding

Daquanna:

For me meeting for worship is the intentional opening of a portal. A portal of knowledge, of love, of discernment.

Paula:

Not just believing in our togetherness, but practicing it and taking that sense of togetherness and of deep connection into my day to day life. I’m a very active person. My mind is rarely quiet, and so it’s an important reminder to find balance, to pause, and to think deeply about the things that we might lose sight of.

Paul:

Meeting for worship is a tether. It’s one that I hold on to because I know how easy it is to outrun my guide, to use traditional language.

Solveig-Karin:

Meeting for worship for me, maybe it has a little bit to do with the wind that is blowing right now, because it has to do with waiting. Waiting for the spirit to talk to us. And the spirit is always there, just like the air — but sometimes it moves like the wind.

Rashid:

One of the greatest parts of the faith is doing it in community, and not necessarily by yourself. Each of us can worship in silence in our own home, in secret, in public, but to do so corporately as a body, there is power in doing the important question asking and the seeking and finding the center together as a body — and having confidence that the people that are in the circle with you are seeking the same things as you are

Solveig-Karin:

At some point of life I thought that this was very convenient, that I can do it on my own. But there is something different doing it together — and sharing the silence, sharing the waiting, emptying yourself and opening yourself.

Daquanna:

Worshiping with others and acknowledging their presence, the God in them, is so important to me. That is a major piece of worship, is sitting and believing that, in someone, is going to be a message.

Solveig-Karin:

It isn’t only about being in silence for one hour. It is also about the ministry and of sharing what comes to us when we enter that sacred space

Daquanna:

A space and a place where energy and emotion is being exchanged at a deeper level then it can be in our daily lives. Where the people who are with you in that space or on that screen get to hold you. You get to hold them. You get to feel the energy and the emotions that they’re bringing in –that sometimes you can’t even describe. It’s…

Paula:

A powerful experience. It’s nurturing in a way that nothing else is. To me, it is fulfilling a deep need of my soul to be with others, Just be

Henry:

When I am most struggling with something — some woundedness inside me — oftentimes, I’ll go to meeting for worship and that’s where I find an answer, or where I find people that I think understand.

Abel:

If you stay away, you are isolated in your anger. Finally, you will lose everything. But when we come together, we sharpen one another, we strengthen one another, and we are able to listen to those who are in need. We consider it as a fire. If you want to keep your fire, you put the firewood together. But if you put the firewood, one piece over there, the fire won’t stay longer. Finally, that is the same as we as Christians. We need to come together so we can help one another to grow in that spirit.

Daquanna:

I would tell a newcomer that their message is just as important as anyone else’s in that space, and that if they get a message, I encourage them to give it. We don’t know where messages or who messages are going to come from.

Rashid:

And we want and expect to be transformed by newcomers. Sure. Quakers have something to offer someone who is brand new to the Quaker faith. But more important than that is continuing revelation. You are the revelation. What you bring to the table is important to our survival as a faith community. If God is leading you here, God is leading you to us to be changed by you.

Discussion Question:

• What does Meeting for Worship mean to you?

The views expressed in this video are of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Friends Journal or its collaborators.