Quaker Worship (Part 7): Having a Business Attitude
Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting
Pastor Bob Henry
November 7, 2021
Ephesians 4:1-3 (The Voice)
As a prisoner of the Lord, I urge you: Live a life that is worthy of the calling He has graciously extended to you. 2 Be humble. Be gentle. Be patient. Tolerate one another in an atmosphere thick with love. 3 Make every effort to preserve the unity the Spirit has already created, with peace binding you together.
Back in the Spring of 2017, when we were visiting First Friends for the first time, we were invited after Meeting for Worship to attend the beginning of your monthly business meeting before going out for lunch.
Since we were living in Oregon and had not seen our son, Alex, for several months, we made sure to fly into Fort Wayne and pick him up from Huntington University and bring him with us.
He came to Meeting for Worship that morning with a skeptical outlook, due to factors that affected our family in our Meeting in Oregon. I will be honest, I was using him to give me a raw perspective and knew he would be an honest indicator for what he saw at First Friends.
Alex said very little during worship other than how the name tags made him uncomfortable and how he did not like the organ. Yet, when we were ushered into the front row of Meeting for Business in the parlor that morning, he was very attentive and listened carefully.
I knew Alex, at his young age, had been a part of one too many Meetings for Business that had gone wrong or were not facilitated well at both the local and yearly meeting levels. As a youth representative and leader, he found himself in the middle of the split taking place over Same-Sex Marriage that was tearing apart our yearly meeting in the Northwest.
At the time of our visit, Dan Rains was the clerk of the meeting and had gone out of his way to make us feel welcome. Jeff Goens, our current clerk introduced us in the Business Meeting and said we were only going to stay for the beginning of the Meeting.
As we sat listening to committee reports and listening to the business of First Friends, Alex leaned over and whispered something in my ear I will never forget. He said, “Well, they know how to do business.”
I remember well, Dan Rains beginning that meeting for worship by discussing how Quakers consider the business of the meeting as an extension of our worship. I had heard this before, but sadly, due to the turmoil in our local and yearly meetings in Oregon, we had rarely experienced it. I spent the last two years in Oregon before coming to First Friends helping guide and work closely with the clerk of our meeting at Silverton Friends to get us back to this Quaker foundation.
And even though, as Alex put it, we know how to do business at First Friends, I believe on occasion we need to be reminded and even re-taught on how we can keep our business an extension of our worship.
As I prepared for the sermon this week, I returned to what I consider the primer on Quaker Process – ironically by that same title – written by Mathilda Navias. She starts the chapter on Meeting for Business with the following quote from Paul A. Lacey and Bill Taber from their important book, “The Purpose of Meetings for Worship and Business.” I believe it gives a solid framework for Quaker Business being a true extension of our worship – they say,
“The Meeting for business, if it be Spirit-filled and properly understood, is a hands-on, laboratory-filled experience in which the whole fellowship comes face-to-face with the Spirit’s demands for the sacrifice of time, treasure, convenience, and prejudice. When opinions differ widely and the need for spiritual discernment becomes crucial, the best are driven, as never in a meeting for worship, to seek that Spirit which can sustain harmony while waiting for the right leading. Thus, God’s work among us becomes more real and faith is both tested and strengthened in the business meeting.
From this definition, you could almost say a Quaker Meeting for Business is just Quaker Worship on steroids.
Often in our world we connect business with “getting things done” or “dealing with issues” or “fixing those things that are going or have gone wrong,” but those are all just effects or outcomes of business practice.
When you study Quaker Business, you find that the primary aim is to deepen the spiritual life of the community, rather than just getting things done. Therefore, you will not find Robert’s Rules of Order within Quaker Business – because Robert’s Rules of Order is a system devised solely around decision-making and finalizing things – getting things done.
For Quakers, business is so much more - so much more fluid, so much more about process.
To understand how we arrived at this place, we need to do a little history. George Selleck wrote about this history in a short pamphlet titled, “Principles of the Quaker Business Meeting. He says,
When Quaker arose in the 17th century, there were objections on the part of some to the holding of business meetings. Some persons felt that such gathering placed undue limitations on the guidance of the individual, but the new Quaker movement was characterized by a faith that the group could be guided, as well as the individual.
The Quaker conviction that the Light of Christ is given in some measure to everyone implies both an individual apprehension of the will of God and also an understanding of God’s will mediated through the insight of others. Quakerism has always had within it a centrifugal force of individualism, but likewise there has always been a centripetal force of corporate life in tension with it.
From the fruitful interaction of these two have come the decisions of the society. The visions and concerns of individuals prevent the society from being over-traditional and static, the insights of a gathered group prevent it from moving over-hastily in unconsidered enthusiasm.
In some ways I consider our Meeting for Business a launch pad and sounding board for greater possibilities for ministry. What individually may happen inside each of us during worship, may have the opportunity to be honed, supported, and find wings among the corporate gathering.
A great example of this “launching pad/sounding board” idea since I have come to minister alongside you all, was back in November of 2017, in my first 6 months at First Friends.
I love to hear Amy Perry tell the story of sensing the Spirit’s leading during Meeting for Worship to investigate volunteering for the Right Sharing of World Resources Stamps Program. It was clear when she came in to talk with Beth and me that following week, that this nudging put her on a trajectory for much more than volunteering.
Amy ended up feeling led to take over the Stamps program with Right Sharing of World Resources. To continue the legacy that Friend, Brad Hathaway had begun twenty years earlier. But Amy knew this was bigger than her personal nudge. She knew that if she was going to take this on, it would have to be a corporate venture. Her individual vision became the launchpad for a full-fledge ministry that impacts our community, as well as the world.
Amy’s faithfulness to follow that leading, and First Friends’ coming around Amy corporately through supporting, volunteering, and affirming her leading (I believe) have deepened the spiritual life of First Friends.
I love popping my head in to say hello or deliver the latest parcel of stamps to our faithful stamping crew on Wednesdays. There is not only an air of Friendly fellowship and comradery, but also a sense of purpose that what they are doing TOGETHER is making a difference and changing our world.
In many churches today, business gets put before worship, and the outcome can be much different than the example I just gave. Worship must be part of the process or maybe I should say – it must be the process.
Our worship at First Friends, whether unprogrammed or programmed should be where the business begins.
If Quaker Business process is about deepening the spiritual life, and inviting participants to seek God’s will and build and preserve a loving community together, then each time we come to Meeting for Worship, we are laying a foundation for our ongoing business.
It should be what happens in this place right here that ushers us into our committee work, our monthly business meetings, even our daily interactions with our neighbors and fellow Friends.
The integrity of the gathered community becomes more important than the decisions being made.
Our Business is where we work to maintain loving relationships with one another, practice listening or speaking, and seek a unified sense of Truth.
Eden Grace who served Friends United Meeting until recently has alluded to Quaker Business Practice as being more about having the right attitude over the preferred outcomes or results.
She spelled out four attitudes Friends must utilize in their business in an article she wrote for the World Council of Churches in 2000. I believe they are a great review for us as we enter any business at First Friends
Our attitude toward God:
Eden says that when we enter into any Meeting business it should be with hearts and minds prepared to be led by the Spirit. That we seek to renew our commitment to the Divine’s leading and are willing to lay our own strong feelings and desires before God.
Our attitude toward the other members:
She says, “Quaker process places a high value on the strength of the community. A Sense of the Meeting is only achieved when those participating respect and care for one another.”
Thus, it requires us to have a humble and loving spirit, imputing purity of motive to all participants, and offering our highest selves in return. This way we can create a safe space for sharing.
Our focus should be on listening carefully, respectfully, lovingly, and always listening for the presence of God through what someone is saying, knowing that there is that of God in each of us.
Our attitude toward the process:
She says, “[Friends] value process over product, action or outcome. That means we respect each other’s thoughts, feelings and insights more than expedient action. The process of reaching a decision yield more "results" than the decisions themselves.
Our attention to the Divine movement in the community is, in fact, the source of decision and action, so that process and outcome are ideally two sides of the same experience.
Our attitude toward potential outcomes:
Eden says, “We know that none of us is likely to enter the Meeting with a fully formed understanding of the will of God, and so we expect that a new way will emerge which is not necessarily identified with the position of any person or faction. "
This means a group, meeting in the right spirit, may be given greater insight than any single person."
"A gathered meeting under the authority of God is often able to find unity in creative ways which were not considered before the meeting but which become apparent during its course. Though the process of Quaker business may take some time, at the end it can find a united meeting able to act swiftly because the action has been widely agreed.
Ask yourself, are these my attitudes when I come to Meeting for Business, a Committee Meeting, or any business at First Friends?
I sense when we don’t come with these attitudes in check we immediately are faced with a lack of mutual trust and respect for one another, a shyness or unwillingness to engage each other, and a disregard for what our fellow Friends may consider a leading from the Spirit.
And when this is the case, our default in matters of business among Friends then quickly becomes difficult, we butt heads, we question motives, and personal agendas replace the process of deepening the spiritual life of the community.
Friend, Michael Wajda, sums it up well when he says, this is
“…about looking for Truth as a body, rather than about our individual senses of truth. We need to enter worshipfully into our meetings for business. We need to wrestle with the issues, to share our glimpses of the Truth as we see it, and then we need to let go and listen deeply until all those glimpses give us a sense of the Truth as a whole. This takes time, patience, and surrender.
May this be true for us at First Friends.
Now, as we enter waiting worship let us humbly present ourselves before the Divine for transformation, teaching, love, hope, freedom, a leading of the Spirit, and all with a proper attitude for one another. Here are some queries to ponder this morning.
● What are my misconceptions and attitudes about Quaker Business?
● What leadings of the Spirit have I had during worship that I need to bring forward to the corporate body for discernment and support?
● How am I assisting my fellow Friends in deepening our spiritual life through Quaker Business?