Quaker Meeting for Worship Pt 2: Giving Vocal Ministry

In the Quaker religion, adherents believe that a higher power can speak through them. We asked Quakers what it’s actually like to experience this in Quaker Meeting for Worship. Quaker Speak is a weekly video series. Subscribe so you never miss a video! http://QuakerSpeak.com/subscribe Directed by Jon Watts http://www.jonwatts.com More Resources! Explore the Quaker Way: http://www.fgcquaker.org/explore Read Friends Journal to see how other Friends describe the substance of Quaker spirituality http://www.FriendsJournal.org Come worship with Friends! Find Quakers near you on QuakerFinder and Friends Journal's meeting listings http://www.fgcquaker.org/connect/quak... http://www.friendsjournal.org/meeting... Transcript: Callid Keefe-Perry In the Liberal tradition of Quakerism, at least—although it's present in other places as well—we say we don’t have a priest or a pastor.  We don’t have a human priest or pastor.  The impetus—the power that was really exciting, and George Fox (one of the founders of the Religious Society of Friends) really says in a number of places—what we worship, when we enter into worship, is God.  And God gives us, as in the days of the apostles, a word via the office of prophet.  So we’re sitting in Meeting for Worship underneath the highest priest. Faith Kelley Waiting worship is a time which we sit and focus on the possibility that God is speaking to us.  It’s an experience that’s really unlike any other experience I’ve had. Receiving the Call to Speak Zac Dutton The telltale sign of when you’re sitting in Meeting for Worship and are supposed to give vocal ministry, which is standing up and giving a message that others in the room hear, is the quickening of the heartbeat. Christie Duncan-Tessmer It feels a little bit shaky and flowy, maybe.  I can just feel it moving through me. Zac Dutton …and the feeling like you’re in sixth grade again and you’re running for your first office in the student council and its the first time you’re going to stand up and speak to a group of people.  It’s that kind of hyper-anxiety. Micah Bales Usually there’s something that feels like it’s crystallizing in me.  I’d almost describe it as maybe a sped-up version of what a clam might experience when they get that bit of sand stuck inside and over time it turns into a pearl.  Of course usually we only have an hour for that sand to turn into a pearl in the Meeting for Worship, but God puts some spiritual sand in my heart and I wrestle with it.  It may just be some sand that I need to wrestle with and its for me, but sometimes it turns into a pearl in a way where I just have to share it, I can’t keep the pearl to myself and it’s clearly been given for the whole community. Discerning the Call Victoria Greene I think I’ve given a message twice.  My concern was this, and I’ve asked a few members, “how do you know that’s God talking to you, how do you know it’s not just you?”  And they say, “well, you listen to the still, small voice,” but the still, small voice could be your still small voice.  Anyway, I always had a like, “Is this really God speaking to me?” Faith Kelley I’m kind of an over-sharer sometimes, and so I need to really sit with it, because I’ve had that experience of God giving me something and it’s just for me, and it actually is usually just for me.  And so I have to be careful to only stand up when I feel like God has called me to share that. Christopher Sammond I am very good at subtly talking myself out of a leading.  And then I can say, “Oh, the leading has gone away.  I don’t need to rise and speak.”  I can say, “I spoke last week and I shouldn’t speak again,” or, “This isn’t a topic that’s going to go over well in the Meeting,” or, “That’s too close to the bone, I’d rather not share that.”   Unless I go to a place of complete faithfulness and say, “I will share whatever I am led to share,” I can make myself feel like the leading has gone away.  And then just live with a mild discomfort.  So frequently my process is one of having to wrestle with my resistance to speaking and then coming to that place of genuine faithfulness where I will say anything that I am feeling led to say and to share that. Full Transcript: http://quakerspeak.com/quaker-worship...