If our meetings and their worship and ministry committees feel that they have no responsibility or role to play in the religious lives of Friends who feel called into vocal ministry, even though these Friends bring their ministry to the meeting regularly, what does that mean? What does it mean if a meeting has so abandoned its traditions as to leave its vocal ministers with no help at all, even when they have a calling that to them is a profound religious responsibility and might be fraught with a sense of great personal spiritual risk?

Recently in meeting for worship, my meeting had quite a bit of vocal ministry, and I myself felt a prompting, but my discernment process took longer than the time for worship allowed.

Two friends spoke who speak fairly often, and I speak fairly often, too, so there might have been three of us frequent speakers if time had allowed. My potential ministry started as a concern about this fact, that I speak fairly often, and so do some others, but also from the fact that I experience my vocal ministry as a calling. Thinking about this situation and my calling, then and since, has prompted this post and some queries.

The essential principle of the Quaker way, which we know from direct experience, is that each one of us can commune directly with the Divine. Flowing organically from this experience is our understanding and practice of Quaker ministry: we know—also experientially—that any one of us may be called into G*d’s service. The quintessential manifestation of Spirit-led service for Friends is our vocal ministry—that any one of us may be prompted by the Spirit to rise and speak in meeting for worship.

For several hundred years, Friends experienced vocal ministry as a calling—not as a series of individual and unrelated events in a person’s worship life, but as a relationship with both Christ and meeting that occupied and transformed one’s whole religious life—and thus one’s relationship with one’s meeting—in profound ways. The ministry that one offered on any given First Day was no isolated event in a random series, but rather a manifestation of these relationships with God and meeting, organically bound to one’s other vocal ministry by the sense of calling, by one’s practice of faithfulness to the call, and by the attention of the meeting.

This is why we had elders—vocal ministers needed ministering to. This is why some older meetinghouses have facing benches—so that the ministers could sit—and stand—where they faced the body so that Christ’s Word could be heard more easily. Some meetinghouses even have a canopy over the facing benches, often with a plastered curve at the upper corner, to better reflect sound. This is why we have ministry and worship committees.

But most meetings no longer have elders, and leave their vocal ministers to struggle on their own with whatever sense of calling they might have. Most meetings no longer record gifts in ministry, and therefore have lost any direct relationship they might have with emerging ministers and their gifts. Most modern meetinghouses have no facing benches, and the meetings that do usually allow anyone to sit in them, while those who feel led to speak fairly often might be sitting anywhere in the meeting room. Most meetings no longer think of vocal ministry as being prompted by Jesus Christ or even by the Holy Spirit of the Trinity, so vocal ministry is no longer thought of as arising from relationship with either God or even with the meeting, and “faithfulness”, if it figures at all for the minister, is a matter mostly between one’s self and one’s self, not with some “Higher Power”. And most Friends and most meetings no longer think of vocal ministry as a calling.

Meanwhile, some of us find that we are led to speak fairly often. And some of us who are frequent speakers do feel that vocal ministry is for us a calling, and we are left to pursue this calling on our own, without any culture of eldership that could nurture and support our gifts and call.

I feel such a calling, and this raises for me a number of really important questions or concerns, not just for myself, but also for those others in my meeting who feel such a call, for the other frequent speakers who perhaps do not think of their ministry this way, and for the meeting itself as a worshipping body.

I think every meeting—and those Friends who have a concern for their own vocal ministry and/or for the vocal ministry in their meeting in general, especially members of our ministry and worship committees—should ask themselves these questions. These are my questions, in a kind of cascading logic tree:

Is the ministry and worship committee of the meeting—or anybody else, for that matter—paying attention proactively to the meeting’s vocal ministry, so that they notice Friends like myself who are speaking fairly often? By proactive attention I mean that someone on the committee might say, Steven Davison seems to be speaking fairly frequently in meeting for worship—I wonder whether he feels a calling to vocal ministry? And then the committee would discuss the matter. If the committee is paying this kind of attention, would they then approach me with something like the same question: We notice that you speak fairly often in meeting and we wonder whether you feel a calling to vocal ministry? If my answer is yes, do they then ask: Is there any way we can support your call? Is there any way that we can help you be faithful to it? If they offer support, I accept it. And then what forms might this support take? I personally would be interested in participating in a small, informal mutual support/discussion group with a concern for our vocal ministry, a group that would find its own direction as we were led. I might also be interested in a vocal ministry/spiritual journey friend—some individual person to be in touch with more intimately, as the two of us feel led. But another minister with a calling might have other needs or ideas. If I don’t accept their offer of support, well then, that settles that. The only role the committee might play in the future in my vocal ministry might be to act to protect the worship if my vocal ministry became some kind of obstacle to gathered worship. Suppose I answered no, I never have thought about my speaking as a calling. I imagine that many of our frequent speakers might say this. Would the committee then ask: Do you think it’s possible that you do have a call? Would you want any help with discerning a possible call—say, a clearness committee, or just someone to talk to about it? If I said yes, then we’re on to # 1.1.1.1. If I said no, I don’t want any of your attention, then we’re back to 1.1.1.2. If it appears that none of the frequent speakers in the meeting have a sense of calling, but the committee feels that this is a meaningful way to approach vocal ministry, would the committee then begin a program of religious education that would introduce the practice and help prepare a religious ecosystem in the meeting that would begin to foster and support callings to vocal ministry? If the committee is not paying this kind of proactive attention to the meeting’s experience of vocal ministry, then why not? Is it because no one on the committee considers the possibility that one might be called into vocal ministry (or any other ministry for that matter)? Has the committee ever discussed the matter? If someone on the committee does feel, as I do, that in fact some of us are called into vocal ministry as a calling, would such a committee member feel free to bring such a practice up to the committee? If not, why not? Do you imagine that there would there be resistance somewhere in the meeting to the ministry and worship committee proactively practicing this kind of attention and/or providing some eldership to those with a sense of calling? Has the meeting discussed vocal ministry enough as a body to give the committee some sense of what their practice should or at least could be? If the committee does not feel free on behalf of the meeting to serve the members who do feel a call to vocal ministry, could they still facilitate or support some more informal form of support?

If the answer to all of these questions is no, the committee and the meeting have no responsibility or role to play in the religious lives of Friends called into vocal ministry, even though they bring that ministry to the meeting regularly, what does that mean? What does it mean if a meeting has so abandoned its traditions as to leave its vocal ministers with no help at all, even when they have a calling that to them is a profound responsibility and is fraught, potentially, with great personal spiritual risk?