When I first sit down on a meetinghouse bench on a Sunday morning, I’m anything but focused. My mind is aswirl in family and work to-dos, scenes from books I’ve read or shows I’ve watched, extended family dramas, bills, or crises. If I’ve forgotten to turn off my phone, a stream of vibrations will nag me, each buzz demanding my attention.

If I consciously work to settle down—and am lucky or blessed—I can sink into the imperfect silence and feel at-one with the gathering worship. The sounds draw me closer: the rustling of Friends shifting softly in their seats, the crackling of the fireplace on cool mornings, the wind outside blowing leaves against the porch door. If we’re fortunate, the offered ministry that morning will speak to our conditions and bring us deeper still, to the feet of the divine Teacher and Comforter. We may not get there every week, but when we do, we feel at-one with one another and with a higher power.

Pendle Hill’s Hybrid Worship Experiment

Here’s a quote from Francisco on how the worship mirrors in-person worship yet has distinct challenges.

This is an ongoing learning experience. At any monthly meeting, you will have First Days in which the worship experience is like a popcorn meeting, with a lot of ministry. Other times, it is completely silent. The online experience will be similar to that. We are working to find out what resources and support structure we can make available to people. Some people realize that they have a stage with 140 people and feel the need to speak not just long, but very often. How can we encourage Friends to season the message that they are receiving?

Transcending Geography

Reinventing Pendle Hill’s morning worship.

Friends Journal

A Quaker’s Guide (PDF)

There are a lot of Quakers for whom the quality of their worship is measured by the quality of the silence therein, to the point that “disruptions”—whether they come from children, latecomers, folks who are not neurotypical, or folks who don’t comport themselves in the manner of the white middle class—are regarded as annoyances. This is not just a mistake.

We don’t worship silence

I am going to make a bold apology for a clarified liberal Quaker identity that retains its roots and recovers worship in the spirit of Christ, but yet releases us from the orthodox Christian preoccupations that no longer speak to so many unprogrammed Friends.

Are Quakers Christian?

I thought I had wandered into a group of people who actually believed that God was able to speak directly to them. I remember saying, “Oh my God, this is Pentecost!” I couldn’t believe that these people think God is actually glllllloing to speak to them! I’m down for this. This is where I belong.

Most of the Quakers reading this can probably guess where this is going–she pretty quickly got a lesson in the unwritten norms against exuberance at many Quaker meetings, the rules that prevent many expressions of worship. Ayesha’s Black and many of the strictures on behavior are pretty middle-class white. But a lot of this isn’t really about race. I’ve been led to do some very non-ordinary things at uptight Quaker meetings and feeling incredibly self-conscious over it. When I came to Friends, I loved the idea of the radical spontenaeity of our worship (anyone can minister anytime!) and the life it called us to but in practice we often are creatures of habit, to our detriment. I love Ayesha’s talk of “experimenting with freedom” and the “liberty of the spirit.” I realize my stories of non-ordinariness are all over a decade old. I wish I felt more of that liberty again.

http://quakerspeak.com/how-does-culture-influence-quaker-worship/