I’ve written before¹ that I’m not a fan of the “when to speak in meeting” flowcharts Friends sometimes post in the meetinghouse to discourage vocal ministry. One is expected to test an incoming message against half a dozen queries and only speak if they can clear them all in the space of an hour. A lot of newcomers see these and decide to just keep quiet.

Christine Hartmann was just one of these new attenders. She writes “after studying all this, I decided to hold off speaking in meeting, if at all possible, for fear of getting it wrong.” She was so careful and so scrupulous that her silence almost cost her her life. I’m not kidding. Literally. Read the article. Wild, wild.

(Yes, there are disruptive newcomers who give inappropriate ministry in Quaker worship. In my experience they’re rarely the ones sitting down and studying flowcharts. The visitors these charts deter are the careful and thoughtful ones who are already tying themselves in knots wondering whether they should speak. These are the folks you want to encourage.)

Health and the Quaker Community — A Life-Changing Lesson from Silence

A medical emergency during Quaker worship reshapes one Friend’s view of ministry, community, and the sacred responsibility of…

Friends Journal

From a non-Quaker perspective, a group of people sitting in a circle in silence, with anyone able to stand and speak, might look very much like a therapy group. We might then interpret the words spoken in this group as being mainly personal and to a large extend private. We might see the person speaking as unburdening themselves, sharing something they’ve perhaps never shared before, and finding healing through this sharing. These words are treated as something precious, belonging to the individual who speaks, and are treated with confidentiality by others in the group.

For those wanting more, the current issue of Friends Journal is all about vocal ministry.

People have been commenting a lot on this chart Friends Journal shared on social media last week. Originally published in the August 1991 issue, what I love most about it is its 1990s-era flowchart design. What would it be today—some punchy infographic perhaps? We dove into the archives because this month’s issue is all about Quaker vocal ministry and at least two of the feature articles mention these kinds of charts.

From Paul Buckley:

There is a frequently reproduced diagram that graphically guides potential speakers through a series of questions they are to consider when they feel an urge to rise and speak. These examine whether a potential message is divinely inspired; whether it is intended for the speaker alone or for others present; and whether this is the right time and place to deliver it. These resources are all useful, but they only address one half of the act of vocal ministry: one that is, by far, the smaller and perhaps less important portion. The other part is the ministry of listening, and we are all called to be listening ministers.

From Edna Whittier:

Since the beginning of the Religious Society of Friends, written advices have guided Friends. Yearly meetings’ faith and practice books, Pendle Hill pamphlets on vocal ministry, and individual monthly meetings’ “Welcome to Quaker Worship” handouts have guidelines for speaking or not speaking in meeting for worship. In 2019, Friends General Conference even published a poster of a circle flow chart with guidelines for delivering a message during worship.

This version is below. Yes, it is very 2020’s infographical in design! (PDF; a similar version was produced for a Pendle Hill pamphlet by FGC staff Barry Crossno and Brent Bill, PDF).

But I link to the articles because these kinds of when-to-speak kind of charts can always become problematic. As Betsy Cazden replied on Twitter: “The people who need it least will spend the full hour obsessing about the flow-chart and will never speak. The people who need it most never will.” Just a few weeks ago I was sitting on a bench in Cropwell (N.J.) Meeting testing and retesting my motivations and leadings to rise and give ministry. I gave a final breath to stand up when I heard the “good morning Friends” followed by the sounds of hands slapping on hands in rise-of-meeting handshakes. Over the years I have learned not spend my whole hour obsessing but had not realized this meeting’s worship was only 45 minutes!

Further reading: An Expected Miracle, a 2023 post about the (often unnecessary) pressures of Quaker ministry.

Updating as I find more

It is through prophecy, through continuing revelation, that the Religious Society of Friends moves forward into God’s next work for us. And we very often get our first inkling of that new truth from someone’s vocal ministry, in a meeting for worship, or a meeting for worship with attention to the life of the meeting, or in a consultation or Triennial or world gathering or FGC Gathering,

The Importance of Vocal Ministry: Prophecy and Continuing Revelation

Since that Sunday worship, I have found myself more inclined and responsive to leadings to share vocal ministry out of Silence. While I still prepare diligently when occasions to plan to preach arise, melding scholarship, daily life, and spirit over time, I am more sensitive and responsive to those inner leadings and the Spirit, from which ALL vocal and non-verbal ministry are born and enlivened.

http://www.nyym.org/content/my-experience-sharing-vocal-ministry

Very often, if we had just heard the lesson without its personal and often anecdotal preamble, it would have felt much more like Spirit-led vocal ministry. So why quibble about it? Because, by the time we get the lesson, it is so saturated with “I” that it has trouble lifting off the ground to transform the We. Our consciousness has been so deeply drawn into personality that it hinders the transpersonal character we hope for in vocal ministry.

Worship Sharing and Vocal Ministry

Quakerism has ruined me for other faith experiences- I was empowered from an early age to have a direct & personal relationship with God, to give vocal ministry (as I first did when I was 12), to dive into silent worship.

Where are the new Quaker meeting plants? Where are the dinner worship groups? Where is the connection with the Spirit? Where is the space for Friends to encounter and share authentic faith journeys?

This reminds me of some of the themes I wrote about in The Lost Quaker Generation (turning fifteen this year) and 2013’s Quakerism Left Me by Betsy Blake. Should the kind of Friends community Susanna’s looking for really be all that rare? Click on the link to read the 10-part story.

X (formerly Twitter)

Jon Watts looks at the ironies of fame-seeking and avoidance:

But this striving for perfect humbleness can easily become dogmatic. We can come to reject anything that looks remotely like attention-seeking, and we miss God’s message in it.

Jon weighs in with some good, juicy questions. Where is self-promotion a way to promote something bigger? And when is it ego-driven? t’s not just a internet question, of course. This is also at the heart of our Quaker vocal ministry: someone just stands up in worship with an implicit claim they’re speaking for God.

Samuel Bownas is a good go-to person for these sort of dilemmas. He was a second-generation Friend who shared a lot of the inside dirt about Quakers in ministry. He wrote down the trials and temptations he faced and that he saw in others in their “infant minstry” as a conscious mentorship of future Friends.

One of Bownas’s themes is the danger of apeing others. It’s tempting to get so enamored of someone’s beautiful words that we start consciously trying to mimic them. We stop saying what we’ve been given to say so as to sound like the (seemingly) more-articulate person whose style we envy. Most creative artists walk this tension between copying and creating and as Wess will tell you, the idea of remix has become of more importance in the era of digital arts. But with ministry there’s another element: God. Many Quakers have been pretty insistent that the message has to be given “in the Spirit” and come from direct prompts. Unprogrammed Friends (those of us without pastors or pre-written sermons) are exceptionally allergic to vocal ministry that sounds too practiced. It’s not enough that the teaching is correct or well-crafted: we insist that it be given it at the right time.

When thinking the pitfalls about ministry I find it useful to think about “The Tempter.” I don’t personify this; I don’t insist that it’s central to Quaker theology. But it is a thread of our theology, one that has explained my situation, so I share it. For me, it’s the idea that there’s a force that knows our weaknesses and will use them to confuse us. If we’re not careful, impulses that are seemingly positive will provoke actions that are seemingly good but out of right order–given at the wrong time.

So, if like Jon, I start worrying I’m too self-promotional, the Tempter might tell me “that’s true, it’s all in your head, you should shut up already.” If I work myself through that temptation and start promoting myself, the Tempter can switch gears: “yes you’re brilliant, and while you’re at it while don’t you settle some scores with your next post and take some of those fakers down a notch.” There’s never an objective “correct” course of action, because right action is about stripping yourself of self-delusion and navigating the shoals of contradictory impulses. The right action now may be the wrong action later. We all need to grow and stay vigilant and honest with ourselves.