My friend Kevin-Douglas emailed recently about a new wor­ship group he’s helped to start in down­town Bal­ti­more. It sounds like some of the other Christ-center wor­ship groups that have been pop­ping up the shadow of estab­lished Quaker meet­ings. It’s con­sciously small and home-based, tak­ing place at a non-traditional time with an implicit Emer­gent Church fla­vor. Expe­ri­enced Friends are involved (I know KD from FGC’s Cen­tral Com­mit­tee for exam­ple) and while it’s formed next to and out of large, active meet­ings, it’s not schismatic.

I asked KD if I could put his descrip­tion up as a “guest post.’ I’m hop­ing a post here can let more seek­ers and Friends in Bal­ti­more know about it. But beyond that, there’s a def­i­nite small move­ment afoot and I thought Ranter read­ers might be inter­ested in the exam­ple (here are a few oth­ers: Laugh­ing Waters and Chat­ta­hoochee (thanks to Bill Samuel for the last link, some of these are indexed in his help­ful Friends Chris­t­ian Renewal listing).

From KD:

Before R. got sick and even­tu­ally died, we had been think­ing of
host­ing an infor­mal meet­ing for wor­ship in the man­ner of Friends at our
house that would be explic­itly Christ-centered. We aren’t talk­ing
Chris­t­ian Ortho­doxy here, but rather with the under­stand­ing of all
involved that we come together to explore our faith through the
teach­ings of Jesus and those who came before and after him.  It would
be Quaker in that we’d fol­low in the tra­di­tion of Quaker Chris­tians,
gain­ing from their wis­dom and experience.

Now, the Spirit is lead­ing me back to this.  

So, what is going on? 

I
very much appre­ci­ate uni­ver­sal­ism as a world view. I in no way believe
that Chris­tian­ity is the only way. I do believe, how­ever, that Jesus is
the Way, Truth and the Life.  The Way being one of love and com­pas­sion,
of jus­tice and sin­cere seek­ing of that mys­tery that I call God.  I
don’t think Jesus was the only one who brought that way, but I do see
his way as lead­ing to God, and that by his Way, we can get to God. It
doesn’t mat­ter to me whether he was or is God; I do see him as a
sacra­ment, a way to God.  For me he is the way to God.  He is liv­ing. I know this experientially.

So
I want to share in this with oth­ers. I want to sit in silence, or sing
in praise, or con­sider a query, scrip­ture or word of advice from
Friends past with oth­ers who also want to know God through Christ.  I’m
not con­cerned about the­ol­ogy.  IT’s about expe­ri­ence for me.  I don’t
mind if those who don’t “know Jesus” come, as I know God can speak
through all.   If those who come and don’t con­sider them­selves
Chris­t­ian are will­ing to wres­tle with the teach­ings of Jesus and his
ances­tors and his fol­low­ers, then I say WELCOME!  I’m not set on form
either.  I do pre­fer unpro­grammed wor­ship, but I mean that lit­er­ally: 
that we don’t nec­es­sar­ily set a pro­gram, but that there indeed may be
silence or a query, scrip­ture or advice read at the begin­ning of
wor­ship. Per­haps can­dles are lit, maybe even *gasp* incense!  I don’t
feel the need to be bound to our puri­tan roots and yet I feel the
wis­dom of allow­ing the Spirit to direct the wor­ship is a wis­dom we
should con­tinue to fol­low.  I believe in expe­ri­en­tial and exper­i­men­tal
wor­ship. Per­haps we have the Friends hym­nal avail­able and one may feel
led to sing from it and oth­ers can join if they too feel led.  As for
now, it’s been com­pletely unpro­grammed wor­ship as one would find in
most Con­ser­v­a­tive Friends meet­ings.   As for com­mu­nity, I hope God will
gather together a com­mu­nity where we do rec­og­nize min­istries and gifts
per­haps in the way that Friends have done so tra­di­tion­ally but maybe in
rad­i­cally new ways!   I’m so tired of Evangelical/Liberal/Conservative labels.  Can we just be Friends?

I do so love being Quaker.  I do so love Jesus.  I hope to find a com­mu­nity where these are wed with­out qualifications.

We meet third Sun­days of every month at a home (Mine right now) from 5-6pm and are listed in Quaker Finder:

Down­town Bal­ti­more Wor­ship Group
Christ-centered, unpro­grammed wor­ship is gen­er­ally held on the 3rd Sun­day of the month at 5:00 PM in a home. Fol­low link for cur­rent details.