From Bill Taber’s The The­ol­o­gy of the Inward Imper­a­tive: Min­istry of the Mid­dle Period

The “awful­ness” of becom­ing a min­is­ter lay part­ly in the high expec­ta­tions which the Friends placed on their min­is­ters, for they expect­ed every­thing and noth­ing all at the same time. Min­is­ters were to do every­thing which the Light, the Mas­ter, the Guide, the Heav­en­ly Father (to use some of the var­i­ous names) required of them; they were sup­posed to fol­low every inti­ma­tion and speak every word giv­en them in the light. Thus moth­ers or fathers might have to leave fam­i­ly, work, and friends for years while they trav­eled, not know­ing when the Spir­it would allow them to return. On the oth­er hand noth­ing was expect­ed of them if they felt no imme­di­ate lead­ing, not, of course, could they ever pre­pare for any ser­mon. Thus each new meet­ing, each new fam­i­ly vis­it was a fresh test of faith in which one might be called to rise with­out know­ing what was to be said, or what dif­fi­cult or per­plex­ing words might come forth; even worse, a well-known min­is­ter might be required to remain silent through­out a meet­ing called just for him…

Thus, as their jour­nals make very clear, they expe­ri­enced the body of Christ not as a metaphor but as a liv­ing cli­mate or organ­ism from which — as well as in which — they func­tioned. They saw them­selves not as sep­a­rate lead­ers but as exten­sions of the one Life and Pow­er. They dwelt togeth­er with the oth­er mem­bers in the same pool of the divine pres­ence which blend­ed all souls togeth­er in a won­der­ful uni­ty. Although Quak­er min­is­ters were expect­ed to be very good exam­ples of the Quak­er way of life, they were not required to be lead­ers all the time; they could sink back into the nur­ture and uni­ty of the body until such times as they were clear­ly called to stand forth for the Lord. They knew that if they were “faith­ful,” he would give them both words and pow­er, or the “mat­ter and the “life.” Yet even so, each new meet­ing was a renewed test of faith; as Han­nah Strat­ton (1825 – 1903) of Ohio Year­ly Meet­ing (Con­ser­v­a­tive) put it near the end of her life, “it don’t get easy.”

Ever since I found Friends at age 20, I’ve been drawn to this rather seri­ous vision of min­istry, with its strict demand for a com­plete trust in the Holy Spirit’s prompt­ing in the moment. It’s not easy to square with mod­ern Quak­er prac­tices. I’m due to lead 5.5 hours of a work­shop next week; the top­ic and times are set. But maybe this dilem­ma is not so very new. Trav­el­ing min­is­ters in the qui­etist “mid­dle peri­od” that Tabor describes had itin­er­aries and meet­ings called for them (as for the min­is­ter of his sto­ry that was led to stay silent for a called worship). 

How do you pre­pare when you shouldn’t pre­pare? Per­haps by spend­ing part of a Sat­ur­day after­noon read­ing an old Bill Tabor pam­phlet that’s not on a top­ic you’re expect­ed to lead on the fol­low­ing week. 

I’m read­ing Tabor’s essay in Quak­er Reli­gious Thought num­ber 50, autumn 1980.