Another commonly-held view of spoken ministry is that it is how Friends share their thoughts, feelings and experiences with each in other, in the context of an inclusive community. Ministry is one way that we can support, encourage and get to know each other. It does not require any special ‘spiritual’ experiences or promptings, and the aim should be to accept and welcome every person’s contribution without judgement, as a way of recognising everyone’s equal worth and value to the community. Some ministry may speak to me more than others, but there can be no question of any ministry being ‘deeper’ or more ‘authentic’ than any other. All ministry is simply and equally the truthful expression of the individual Friend’s own experience. In this view, it would also be wrong ever to question the content or motivation of any spoken ministry, which would amount to criticising that Friend’s presence in the community.
According to both of these views, there is little wisdom in the Quaker traditions of weighing and discerning spoken ministry, of regular ministers’ responsibility for study and spiritual development, or of elders’ duty to encourage authentic ministry and discourage what is unhelpful. These traditional aspects of Quaker practice are often discounted as out-dated or irrelevant, because they do not fit with the understandings of ministry currently held by many Friends. But these traditions make much more sense if spoken ministry is understood as having much in common with other, everyday skilled practices such as gardening, cooking or carpentry.
This approach shares the understanding that Quaker practices such as spoken ministry cannot be reduced to a set of rules, but this does not mean that there are no standards by which they can be judged and appreciated. The Quaker practices of worship, discernment and testimony require skill and good judgement both to practise well and to appreciate in others. Just as we don't become a skilled gardener or cook overnight, we also have to grow into the exercise and appreciation of Quaker practices, through continual learning and patient effort.
Shared standards of judgement and appreciation are part of what defines a community of practice. Gardeners differ widely in their tastes and styles, but part of what it means to be a gardener is to have developed the capacity to recognise good gardening when you see it – even in styles that are quite different to one's own. Cooks, carpenters, plumbers and beekeepers have a multitude of different approaches and traditions, but they all involve acceptance of collective standards for the successful exercise of their craft. The standards accepted by organic or permaculture growers differ in significant ways from those of mainstream gardeners, and it is largely the differences in these standards that give these communities their identity; but to reject any collective standard would put the practitioner outside of any community of practice. If someone adopts their own, purely personal standard; saying 'I like my garden full of bindweed and my compost heap anaerobic and slimy', they are simply pleasing themselves rather than participating in any existing community of gardeners.
Spoken ministry in a Quaker meeting for worship is also a communal practice, and it involves collective standards for appreciating good and helpful ministry and avoiding what is unhelpful. There is a role for ‘rules’ or guidelines for good practice; such as avoiding speaking more than once during a meeting, addressing another Friend or contradicting another's ministry. But as with other kinds of skilled practice, rules can only help us to avoid the most glaring errors, and might even be legitimately broken in unusual situations. By themselves, rules cannot guide our appreciation of a good meeting or good ministry. For this we need a shared understanding of the goals of worship and ministry.
Just as with the appreciation of gardens, cooking or poetry, it is inevitable and healthy that we won't always be in full agreement about our appreciation of good ministry, which depends to a considerable degree on our individual needs and conditions. But it is possible to appreciate the quality of spoken ministry from a shared understanding of what the practice of worship is for, rather than just our individual preferences. Just as gardening has goals that are internal to the practice, such as beautiful, thriving and wildlife-rich environments, spoken ministry has its own goals that are inherent in the practice of worship. Authentic ministry is not simply self-expression, it has a purpose that is part of God's purposes for us as a community of faith.
The aim of ministry is to speak from and to the depths of hearts and minds; to raise in its hearers a desire to live more closely to the Inward Guide, more ready to leave behind comfort, security and certainty in the service of a larger, more courageous life of faithfulness to the divine Life within. Ministry such as this is not solely a product of our own efforts; it is a gift of the Spirit, beyond our deliberate contriving. But we have the responsibility to practise becoming more attentive to the Spirit's leadings. It is easy for all of us to confuse divine promptings with the sometimes subtle claims of our own needs for self-assertion or reassurance. It may take a lifetime of practice to become fully sensitive to the leadings that are offered to us, and capable of distinguishing the weeds from the flowers in our ministry. These are the skills of Quaker practice that we need to learn from each other, to enable us to be more faithful in our ministry and more discerning and appreciative of the ministry of others. This deliberate turning of our whole being towards the Inward Light is the work of a lifetime; it takes patience, perseverence, courage and humility that must be learned through continued wholehearted attempts and partial successes and failures. In the words of A. Naeve Brayshaw:
"the knowledge of the harm that we may be doing and of the help that we might be giving turns our faces in the direction of the work, giving us encouragement to it and power to come over the fear that would hold us back."How do you understand the practice of spoken ministry? How has your practice or appreciation developed with experience?
(Christian faith and practice, 1959, 289)
I know somebody who attended for quite a while, but finally gave up because he felt that ministry was nearly always "platitudes". On another tack, I very much like meetings where not a word is spoken -- but I was not the Friend who five minutes before the end of a previously silent meeting stood up to announce how pleasant it was to be in a meeting held in complete silence...
ReplyDeleteThanks for this Mike. Through writing this piece it has occurred to me that, as with any skilled practice that takes much time and experience to develop, we should expect both ourselves and others to be less than perfect at spoken ministry most of the time. This does not mean that there are no collective standards to aim for, but does mean that we need to be accepting of our own and others' inevitable failings. If we are sincerely working towards greater faithfulness in spoken ministry, we will often make mistakes, but through doing so we will hopefully also develop our capacity for greater responsiveness to divine leadings. This is very different, of course, to rejecting the possibility of shared standards altogether and considering ministry as purely subjective. In Friendship, Craig
ReplyDelete