Preparing For Worship in a Programmed Meeting

Friday, March 30th, 2007

I have been looking over some of my early Quaker stuff in anticipation of Cherice’s Wednesday evening discussions and it has struck me how much I appreciate the strong preaching of George Fox and his contemporaries.  A quick glance at era’s during which Friends’ ministry was powerful seems to point to a correlation to times during which the vocal ministry was powerful.

This train of thought brought me to wonder about the role of vocal ministry in programmed meetings. 

When I visited Friends in Ireland (unprogrammed AND evangelical) I noticed a pronounced vitality in their meetings and a strong prophetic (and evangelistic) spirit in the meetings I visited.  (just two meetings on two different Sundays)  In both cases I learned that a few ”weighty Friends” in each meeting would come with a message on their hearts over which they had prayed and studied (a bit like my own preparation for a sermon).  In the silence of worship they would seek the Spirit’s guidance in deciding whether to stand and vocalize that message.  Quite often only one or sometimes none of the prepared Friends would actually speak.

I think we give lip service to a similar dynamic in our meetings.  Certainly we encourage people to stand and give voice to what they believe is a message God has given them for this community of faith on this given Sunday.  I like that practice.

In practicality, however, it is problematic when one’s message eclipses the programmed part of worship.  Sometimes the community becomes anxious when one’s message begins to encroach the space usually taken by the sermon.  In such cases it almost seems we are at odds with our own tradition.

Roy Gathercoal and I have been in an ongoing conversation about this topic, more specifically - the role of prophetic voice in programmed meetings like ours.  The following questions seem important to address.  It would be good to include more of you in the conversations.

Some questions occur to me at this point:

1.  What does it me to prepare for worship in programmed meeting? 

2.  Should several of us prepare messages and then wait for the Spirit’s leading?

3.  Sine we can’t be both programmed and unprogrammed at the same time, how do we accomodate the person who feels nudged to vocalize a message?

4.  What kind of oversight should we provide for worship in terms of the spoken ministry?

5.  What do you do in preparation for worship?  Does it occur to you that perhaps you might be the message bearer on any given Sunday?

6.  Should we leave the time usually taken by a prepared message by a pastor open once a month for others to speak?

7.  Should we add 15 minutes to our meetings to give more time for vocal ministry by others?

8.  Should we provide other venues for people to clear themselves of the messages God puts on their hearts?

I’d like to hear what you think would be best for North Valley as we go forward.

Conversations

3 Responses to “Preparing For Worship in a Programmed Meeting”

  1. Bruce Bishop Says:
    March 30th, 2007 at 2:03 pm

    I think an element missing in your questions, Stan,is that unprogrammed worship isn’t JUST a space for vocal ministry to be shared, but it’s ALSO a space for everyone to be silent before God, to center in and hear the message that God might have for them, be it from the sermon or within their own experience. I wouldn’t want us to propogate the idea that our unprogrammed time is really just an invitation for messages to be shared, and therefore is wasted time if no one shares, or that we must give 15 more minutes just so we can hear from everyone.

    To me, open worship is a group centering exercise, where we each become still and listen to God. Meaningful messages can rise from that time, as prompted by God.. and good preparation is important. But it’s not just the time in the service for non-pastors to share. Meaningful sharing by non-pastors can be placed behind the pulpit during the sermon time, and it can rise from the unprogrammed time. But the unprogrammed time is more than just a pause to see if anyone else has something to say.

    I know you understand it that way as well, Stan. Your questions didn’t really seem to imply that, however. So I offer this potential corrective, and encourage us to get back to YOUR topic about how we can prepare ourselves for a programmed service that has unprogrammed time in it.

    Bruce Bishop

  2. cherice Says:
    April 18th, 2007 at 10:02 pm

    I think adding extra time would be good, and/or having one Sunday a month without a person specified to give a message. These would be good places to start.

    It’s hard to know what to do in a culture where time is so important to us. George Fox could preach for hours because no one was going anywhere–there was nothing else to do on a First-day afternoon! But now so many have such set schedules that getting out of meeting a few minutes late seems like a burden.

    Should we try to be counter-cultural in this and wait for the Spirit’s leading before we leave the room?

    Or do we think the Spirit is working within this cultural way of being, and try to honor the other commitments people have by limiting the length of services and attempting to follow God within that time-frame?

    The question of preparation is an excellent one, which I don’t have a good answer for. Of course I sometimes think I will bring the message that week–whwn I’m on the schedule to do so! But a) what would I do if that day came and I didn’t feel I had a message to share, and b) do i come prepared other times? These are excellent questions which I think drive at the very authenticity of our corporate worship and our way of listening to God as Quakers in general.

  3. Kathleen Gathercoal Says:
    April 19th, 2007 at 9:45 am

    As I read Stan’s comments I was surprised to learn of early Friends preparation before meeting. I had always assumed, as Bruce suggested, that only leadings that arose spontaneously within the meeting were legitimate, but I find the concept of preparing through the week very appealing. I would support this experiment. Might we try it this summer?

    In response to Cherice’s suggestion that we plan some weeks when we would allow ourselves to be flexible with the ending time i.e., allowing ourselves to listen to the Spirit about when to end worship, I think planning to be spontaneous is 1. ironic and 2. a practical way forward. It allows us to think about solutions to one of the practical implications of an extended worship time, namely childcare. I might suggest that on the planned first-day we could have a “second shift” of childen’s church volunteers who might releive those who had already presented and spent time with the children. The shift might allow the children to get a second wind and shift gears into active play or a snack time or some other option. I don’t want to bog down in the details here, but merely to point out one implication that planning might allow us to meet successfully.

    Kathleen Gathercoal

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