How Friends (Quakers) Conduct Church Business
| NOTES: 1. The author is responsible only for the article content itself, and has no control over other page content. Suite101 management is responsible for book recommendations, the SuiteUniversity box and all other non-article content. 2. An updated version of this article is available. |
Friends are not to meet [in meetings for business] like a company of people about town or parish business ... but to wait upon the Lord. (George Fox, Letters)
Friends (Quakers) do many things in a different manner than most do. One of these things is how Friends conduct their church business. In a study on this subject, Beyond Majority Rule (Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, 1983), Michael J. Sheeran, S.J. states Friends "...may be the only modern Western community in which decision making achieves the group-centered decisions of traditional societies."
Democracy or Theocracy?
Some people, even some Friends, look at the open and participatory aspects of a Friends meeting for business, and conclude it is designed to be democratic. In fact, its intention is not to find what the most people want to do, but to find the will of God for the body that is meeting. Friends decision making is fundamentally theocratic rather than democratic.
Friends decision making is a matter of spiritual discernment. It is based on a belief that God's will can be perceived by human beings. Furthermore, it assumes that God speaks consistently to all and therefore that all who genuinely seek the will of God can find unity in what it is.
Doing Business in Worship
A Friends gathering to conduct business is first and foremost a meeting for worship. Friends gather in silence, waiting upon the Lord, open to whatever God may bring them in ministry and in business.
While it may be difficult, it is key to the proper conduct of business that Friends remain in a spirit of worship when they move out of the silence to consider agenda items. It is essential that the focus remains on what God wills, not what are the personal desires of those gathered. When someone speaks, they need to do so without ownership of what is spoken, allowing what is spoken to be used in whatever way helps the discernment process. In keeping with this principle, it is customary that minutes of a meeting do not state who offered a point of view. There should be no rush to speak immediately after another, and more extended periods of silent waiting can be very powerful when a meeting seems divided.
Latest Articles