Research as Ministry

This article originates from a workshop that became an exercise in ministry about Quaker gathered worship; it was held at Ben Lomond Conference Center (zoom only) in late February, 2021. It drew upon a few of the fifty-five research conversations with seasoned Friends (about one-third Pastoral Quakers) in which I asked everyone – and recorded and transcribed their responses – about their understandings of the gathered meeting. I am thankful to the more than twenty participants, including the staff of Ben Lomond as well as to my elder, Cynthia, who accompanied me in this ministry.

In many ways, the fact that I presented this workshop in a role of Quaker minister has a history. Santa Monica Quakers developed a spiritual accountability group to guide and hold my leading. We relied upon a Pacific Yearly Meeting handout about leadings, “Faithfulness in Action: Supporting Leadings in Pacific Yearly Meeting.” There was an extensive clearness committee about whether – or not – I had a leading; after months of discernment and nearly a dozen sessions with the spiritual accountability group (who became my elders), the group concluded that I had a leading and reported back to Ministry and Counsel; the accountability group brought a Travel Minute to the Ministry and Counsel committee and they brought the Minute that identified my leading as a ministry to Business Meeting. The Business meeting approved the minute and agreed that I would explore a ministry to bring the Quaker gathered experience to the wider Quaker community through presentations, workshops and writing. I would engage in this ministry on behalf of my monthly meeting and the three-person spiritual accountability group would provide support, encouragement and critique in this ministry.

I tried out what it might mean to be called as a Quaker minister at a number of Quarterly Meetings; I functioned as the Carroll Research Scholar at Pendle Hill and presented at its Monday Night lecture; I published articles about all of this in both Friends Journal and Western Friend; and I presented talks at California Quaker meetings as well as in New Mexico. This article focuses upon a weekend session at Ben Lomond Conference Center in northern California. With the approval and support of my home meeting, the workshop explored my role as Quaker minister.

As a minister, I grounded our learning in the roots of our faith: we encouraged participants to be open to the Lord and to listen to directions from the Holy Spirit. This ministry meant that one of the goals was to lead participants to their Inner Teacher. Accompanied by my elder, we encouraged participants to open their hearts and souls, waiting and worshipping together in the Light.

I used twenty excerpts from the research conversations and shared them in a thematically organized way. We focused upon what it meant to “prepare” for the possibilities of a gathered worship. I organized the workshop around four themes: these included a theme about letting go of the ego, a theme about prayer, a theme around vocal ministry and a final theme about the need for a spiritual center.

The approach asked participants to respond to key texts from my research findings. Here are the directions: “We will approach these passages in a modified worship sharing approach, praying to be open to the Spirit’s guidance and direction in our reflections about these passages. Friends are encouraged to speak from their own experience, open to heart-directed responses, integrating head, heart and spirit together. This contemplative approach encourages participants to allow the passages to enter one’s heart, mind, body and soul from a spiritually centered place.” Here's an example of an intense, dramatic reflection about letting go of the ego and its possible consequences:

“It's an extreme letting go. And I think George Fox was writing about it when he talked about going through the flaming sword. It cuts off everything that you think you know, all your pride, all your, everything. And you've been burst into this inseparable oneness kind of thing. And I was hungry to go back there all the time, but it's like you can't live there because it's not here and you just can tap into it and have it guide you. I compare it somewhat to the Kundalini awakening and going into Nirvana as a Buddhist and Holy communion the actual experience, I think it's a cosmic thing and that it's in everybody that's been here for centuries.

“I have a feeling it's a consciousness that of God in everybody that I think that's a consciousness thing. And in that consciousness, you tap into that and it gets more frequent. Maybe, I don't know what happens, you know how, who has it, but there've been times when I've been in it so that I can see the light.”

It’s like listening to music: there’s an expressive resonance; it starts with the allusion to a prophetic and visionary offering from George Fox’s Journal, how “I was come up in spirit through the flaming sword into the paradise of God. All things were new, and all the creation have another smell unto me than before, beyond what words can utter” George Fox, Journey of George Fox, edited by John L Nickalls, p. 27).

As with Fox’s vision, this prophetic ministry contains wit, imagination and a bite: this Quaker woman discovered a visionary language to take listeners inside a spiritual transformation. The language goes to faithful Quaker roots; it reaches down into three different traditions, opening into a radical, alternative consciousness.

She has “burst into this inseparable oneness,” finding three different metaphors to carry the transformation. These metaphors reflect a radical, transformed consciousness that she experienced. In the framework of Buddhist Nirvana, there’s the connection between being caught or seized by how the mind was quenched and she could be released from suffering; the fires of greed and ignorance burn up and she enters a cycle of rebirth. In the context of the Kundalini awakening, it’s a form of divine female energy; there are openings into strength and wisdom. And for the “actual experience” of communion, there’s the indwelling presence of God and Christ in holy communion.

This passage illustrates how some of the conversations from my research about the Quaker gathered meeting became openings into alternative, prophetic visions. This meant that many of these research participants were my Quaker teachers: they led me to my Inner Teacher, open to the Inner Light. It became appropriate to follow in their footsteps as these research participants functioned as guides and teachers. These prophetic openings allowed me to be connected to creative and imaginative and visionary Quakers. In the workshop I carried forward what I learned.

This workshop morphed into an extended deepening of worship: we spoke out of the silence; we allowed ourselves to be led; Friends felt it was okay to be connected to the Holy Spirit; participants felt the power and presence of the Inner Light and Teacher and reached for truth within themselves. The devotional, spiritually deepening time together started on a Friday night and included all-day on Saturday and ended with a Quaker Meeting for Worship on Sunday morning.

At Sunday’s meeting for worship, the first speaker offered ministry about how the Light led us; he felt the presence of the Spirit and its passion; there was something powerful and necessary to celebrate; he said that it felt right to realize that all of us can discover ways to be led … to turn ourselves over the Lord.

I spoke next. A passage from Fox’s Journal flowed into me and I realized that the passage had always haunted me. I remembered Fox’s prophetic ministry about his experience in which he walked through the streets of Litchfield proclaiming, “Woe unto the bloody city of Litchfield.” In a field overlooking the cathedral town, the Lord told him to take off his shoes and “the word of the Lord was like a fire” in him (Fox, p. 71). And I sang “Take off your Shoes, your standing on holy ground” (Worship in Song, p. 311) about how God spoke to Moses out of the burning bush.

The next vocal ministry brought us into the spiritual center of a gathered worship when she proclaimed in her own prophetic ministry: “All ground is holy and all meetings are gathered.” There were a couple more ministries about the beloved community and the need for prayer.

The final vocal ministry reflected about how we seemed to “bumble head-long into the gathered meeting.”

The workshop and the research became ministry; we were connected to the power of the Lord and celebrated a gathered meeting. Inwardly, I sang the “Dona Nobis Pacem” and its prayer for peace and communion and wholeness.

Stanford Searl is a member of Santa Monica Friends Meeting (PacYM).