Meeting for Worship

 Transvaal Monthly  Meeting1988. ( now Johannesburg Monthly Meeting)

Meeting for Worship is a place where we can feel into the heart of one another. The essence of a spiritual and religious community is that we accept one another. Every person, speaking from his heart, gives food for the others in the meeting. One inestimable contribution is to be ourselves, both in relation to God and to others. (C&SAGM Quaker Handbook, 9.1)

Friends normally gather every Sunday (called "Firstday" in times past) for Meeting for Worship.  

Quaker worship occurs in silence, and is aimed at direct awareness of the presence of God.  There is no priest or minister. There is no set programme. The Meeting starts when the first worshiper sits down, and usually continues for an hour. Go in as soon as you feel ready. It is a good thing if a Meeting can settle down a little before the appointed time. If you enter after Meeting has started do so as quietly as possible. Sit anywhere you like. Try to be quiet in body, mind and spirit. Relax into the silence and into the centre of your being. Listen within the silence, patiently and without expectation, to experience what God may reveal. This "waiting in silence" is the essence of Quaker worship.  Sitting in silence can be difficult especially if one is not used to it, and it is usual to experience the “crowding” of unwanted thoughts.  These may be dealt with by not resisting them but by quietly acknowledging them, and putting them “on one side”.

The silence will be broken when someone present feels the need to say something that will deepen and enrich the worship, and which comes from the spirit of God within. Whatever is said should be heard and held in the silence. There is no debate. Receive what is said in an accepting, charitable spirit. Each contribution rightly given will reach someone, but our needs are different and can be met only in differing ways. If something is said that does not "speak to your condition" then try to reach the spirit behind the words.

There may be one or several persons who feel moved to speak. Sometimes one ministry inspires another. Sometimes persons share things important to them. People may share a thought, a prayer or an experience. There may even be something read, sung or recited. The Meeting ends when the Head of Meeting shakes hands.

 SUGGESTED READING;  WHO ARE THE QUAKERS. THE AMAZING FACT OF QUAKER WORSHIP - G  GORMAN: WHAT ARE OUR MONTHLY MEETINGS DOING? & BEFORE THE MEETING" K.REDFERN: WHO ARE THE QUAKERS? C&SAYM.

 

"On one never to be forgotten Sunday morning, I found myself one of a small company of silent worshippers who were content to sit down together without words, that each one might feel after and draw near to the Divine Presence, unhindered at least, if not helped, by any human utterance. Utterance I knew was free, should the words be given; and before the meeting was over, a sentence or two were uttered in great simplicity by an old and apparently untaught man, rising in his place amongst the rest of us. I did not pay much attention to the words he spoke, and I have no recollection of their purport. My whole soul was filled with the unutterable peace of the undisturbed opportunity for communion with God, with the sense that I had at last found a place where I might, without the faintest suspicion of insincerity, join with the others in simply seeking His presence... since that day,  Friends Meetings have indeed been to me the greatest of outward helps to a fuller and fuller entrance into the spirit from which they have sprung; the place of the most soul-subduing, faith-restoring, strengthening, and peaceful communion, in feeding upon the bread of life, that I have ever known". Caroline  Stephen, 1890 .

 

It is a common experience of Friends that, after a period of restless silence, the Meeting becomes more “gathered” or focussed, and the presence of God discernible.  This is also described as “centering down”.

Meeting for Worship may be supplemented by other kinds of sharing of a worshipful nature; in particular, Worship Sharing [discussed below in section 3.5.1], and “Afterwords”. (C& SAYM, Quaker Handbook, 3.1)

Caring for each other


Caroline Stephen on Worship: selections from her Quaker Strongholds 1890