Gathered Meeting Retreat

I.  Lesson Plan

This is a lesson plan for Atlanta Friends Meeting’s Gathered Meeting Retreat, which will take place on March 27-29, 2015.  My goal for the retreat is to introduce people in the meeting to some of the different ways that Friends worship.  I hope that by talking about different forms of worship and spiritual practices, Friends in the meeting will expand their understanding of worship, have a larger vocabulary for talking about worship and spiritual experiences, and deepen our communal experience of the unprogrammed worship that we practice at Atlanta Friends Meeting.

Friday evening: Introductions (7:00-9:00pm)

·      Introduction: theme, take care of yourself, what we will be doing

·      Opening circle questions (ask people to say their name and stand while speaking):

·      What is one thing that you love about Friends?

·      What is one thing that you brought with you?  One thing you left behind?

·      Why are you here?

·      Names for the divine exercise

·      Introduction to worship sharing (handout)

·      Small groups

·      Introductions

·      Query: How is the Spirit with you?

Saturday morning: Prayer (9:00am-12:00pm)

·      Introduction to prayer – expansive, holding in the Light, go where they haven’t gone

·      Anne Lamott’s prayer: help, thanks, wow

·      “Thanks,” by W. S. Merwin

·      Psalm 16

·      Embodied prayer

·      breathing prayer

·      body prayer

·      doodle prayer (show on a flip chart)

·      mandalas

·      labyrinths/walks

·      prayer postures (holding in the Light) – to your ability

Break

·      Stations of the Lord’s Prayer – a Christ-centered activity (useful, educational, optional!)

·      alternative: mandalas

·      debrief

·      close with singing prayer: Simple Gifts

·      Worships sharing

·      pray together

·      Query:  When you pray, how do you pray?

·      Small groups: pray for each other (be clear about boundaries, participate to your comfort level)

Saturday afternoon: Experiences in Worship (3:00-5:30pm)

Worship

·      Small groups

·      Query: Was there a time when you felt the Spirit moving in worship?

·      Fishbowl

·      People who often speak in meeting: What does it feel like when you give vocal ministry?

·      People who speak less often: How do you experience worship?

·      Conversation for the group

·      What is the strangest thing you or another person has felt led to do during worship?

·      What is vocal ministry?  Where does it come from?

Sunday morning: Worship (9:30am-12:00pm)

·      Semi-programmed worship: singing, gratitudes, petitions

·      Bible reading in the manner of Ohio YM Conservative Friends – introduce, can use other sacred texts

Break

·      Worship

In this retreat, a lot of the activities are focused around queries.  This is a typical Friends practice, but it also reflects my understanding of religious education as not coming primarily from the teacher.  By responding to the queries, the people at the retreat are drawing on their own inner wisdom and bringing responses that are more diverse and profound than I could by lecturing.  Particularly in the section on prayer, I offer many different practices, but I trust that people will choose the practices that are best for them.

The activities in this retreat also reflect my emphasis on the body.  Wherever I can, I have people participate in ways that get them moving and reflecting on their own bodies in worship.  In addition, the majority of the sessions are experiential.  I do not just want people to hear about worship, I want them to experience it themselves.  I hope that in all of this, we will have the experience of God teaching us, directly and through everyone in the room.

II.  Reflection

A joy for me in leading this retreat was how well integrated the children’s program was.  Sometimes in retreats like this, the children’s program can feel like childcare or an afterthought.  I was not responsible for the children’s program, but the woman who was leading the children called me to discuss what I was planning to cover and we talked about how that could be adapted for the children.  For example, both adults and children considered prayer practices on Saturday morning, and the children made a mural entitled “How Do We Pray?” that we later put up in the main room.  The program on Friday night and Sunday morning had intergenerational aspects, and everyone came together for the Variety Show on Saturday night.

The first frustration that I experienced was with the schedule.  I did not have much control over the schedule; the planning committee just told me which blocks of time I had to provide content.  Unfortunately, meals only lasted an hour and the committee scheduled the program to begin exactly when the meals ended (i.e., breakfast was from 8:00 to 9:00 and the morning program was scheduled to begin at 9:00).  This meant that I was rushed trying to get to the room where we were meeting and that everyone else was late.   I spoke with a member of the committee about this and suggested that next year, they schedule at least 15 minutes between the end of meals and program.  

            Another thing that was hard for me was that we had different people in nearly every session.  A few came to everything, but many were unable to arrive until late on Friday, some left early because they were sick, and some were taking this as a real retreat rather than coming to the program.  I expected some of this, and made it explicit that the program elements were optional.  Combined with people arriving late to sessions, however, this made it challenging to know when to start or how many people to expect, and it led to some lack of cohesion in the group.  

My response to both of these issues was to begin with 15 minutes of silent worship.  This worked pretty well.  Our practice in unprogrammed meetings is that the meeting begins when the first person sits in worship, and others enter into that silence.  By being on time myself and sitting in silence, I was able to invite others into worship and signal that we had started the program.

I got some good feedback over the weekend.  One person said that I had done a good job redirecting back to the topic at hand when others tried to change the subject.  There were a few times when people brought up areas that could have derailed the conversation and the program, but I was able to step in and remind Friends to come back to the theme.  Another person commented that she had never seen a retreat leader leave the room the way I did during small group discussions (and other times).  This was intentional: I find that when I am in the room, a lot of the focus is on me, and it is helpful for me to leave when I want participants to talk to each other.

Even though it was a lot of work, I really had a good time leading this retreat.  It was fun for me to share worship practices with my faith community, and it was a different experience to do a retreat for people that I already know.  We got to know each other better, and I know that we will continue to be in relationship with each other.  This also provided an opportunity for me to reflect on how I have grown in ministry and leadership.  I had led almost all of the activities before, but I felt more relaxed and confident than I have in the past, and I think that made it a better experience for everyone.

A Week

I am halfway through my first semester of seminary, and I feel like I have finally settled into a routine.  Some days I am amazed by how different my life is than when I was working an 8-5 job.  I am enjoying myself very much, though.

Outside Cannon Chapel

Before I came to Candler School of Theology, many people warned me that seminary can be challenging for one's spiritual life, so I have been very intentional about my spiritual practices: setting aside at least 15 minutes in the morning for prayer and worship, reading a chapter of the Bible each night, giving thanks before meals, getting regular exercise, and blessing roadkill that I pass by on my bike.

My typical week looks pretty much like this:

First Day: Worship

On Sunday mornings, I have been worshiping with Atlanta Friends Meeting, a large, unprogrammed meeting in Decatur.  My friends Sadie and Chris live just a mile up the road from my apartment, so they usually give me a ride to meeting, which also gives us a chance to catch up.  Worship begins at 10am and lasts for an hour of silence and messages, with a few minutes at the end for holding people or other prayer requests in the Light.  After getting home from meeting, I often nap and then do any schoolwork I have left for the coming week.

Second Day: Prison

One of the unusual things about Candler is that the program includes two years of contextual education.  In our first year, all of the first-year M.Div. students spend four hours a week in social ministry or clinical settings.  On Mondays, I spend the day with eight of my classmates at Lee Arrendale State Prison, the largest women's prison in Georgia.

Chaplain Bishop (left) and the Candler chaplain interns

We meet up around 8am to take a van up to the prison, located about 66 miles northeast of Atlanta.  I have
been assigned to two dorms in the general population.  Two other chaplain interns and I spend about an hour and a half in each dorm, and we meet up with our other classmates for lunch and a 90-minute reflection class in the middle.

Working in the prison is one of the highlights of my week.  When I walk in the dorm, I never know what will happen.  Sometimes a woman will approach me immediately and I will spend most of my time with her.  Other days, I wait in the break room for women to come talk with me.  Most of the time I listen as they share their experiences and concerns, and we pray and talk together.

Third Day: Classes

Other than the reflection group at the prison, all of my classes are on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  The day begins with History of Early Christian Thought (8-9:20am), a large lecture class where we are learning church history from the time of the early church to the Reformation (we will take a class that covers the Reformation to the current day next semester).

Some of my school books

Next is Pastoral Care (9:30-10:50), a smaller class that is designed to complement our contextual education work.  My prison group is combined with a group that is working in another prison for a class of fewer than 20 people.  We are learning a lot about ministry in the prison setting and pastoral care and counseling for women, and we practice pastoral care with and for each other.

After Pastoral Care, I usually skip chapel so that I can eat some lunch and stop by the on-campus farmers market before choir practice with the Candler Chorale, a one-credit class (12-12:50pm).  Our choir is about seven people, and we usually spend our time on Tuesdays preparing the music we will be singing and leading in the Thursday chapel.

My last class of the day is Old Testament (1-2:20pm), another large lecture class.  This is also a year-long class, and we are currently working our way through the Pentateuch.  We started talking about Leviticus last week and will be moving on to Numbers tomorrow.  I think this is the class that many of my classmates have found most theologically challenging, but I am really enjoying learning about the sources of the Old Testament and reading the text more closely than I ever have before.

Pitts Theology Library

Fourth Day: Reading

Thursday is usually my busiest day of classes, so I spend most of Wednesday in the library, reading and preparing for that.  I also try to fit in a lunchtime swim at the Emory pool, and in the afternoon, I meet with a therapist in the Emory counseling center.  Counseling sessions are free for students (or, rather, included in our tuition and fees), and it has been really great to have someone to meet with each week to help me through all of the transitions.

Fifth Day: Classes

My schedule on Thursday is pretty much the same as Tuesday, with a few exceptions.  Instead of choir practice, my choir often leads the singing in chapel (11am-12pm).  After chapel, I sometimes have another one-credit class called First Year Advising (12-12:50pm).  As the name suggests, this is a class that is supposed to help all of us transition into seminary.  We meet regularly (though not every week) with our faculty advisor to talk about things like financial literacy and what we need to do to satisfy the M.Div. program requirements.

Inside Cannon Chapel

Sixth Day: Schoolwork

Friday is another day without classes and it is tempting to take the day off, but I have been trying to get most of my schoolwork done before the weekend.  It is also a day when we sometimes have special programs at school (for example, next week I will be taking an afternoon workshop on the Enneagram).  Again, I try to fit a run or swimming into the day.  In the evening, I might go out to dinner or do something else to unwind after the week.

Seventh Day: Sabbath

One of the reasons I try to do so much schoolwork on Friday is because I have set Saturday aside as a no-schoolwork day, a sabbath of sorts.  It is amazing to me how tempted I have been to do schoolwork on Saturdays, especially when midterms are looming, but I have managed to stick with it so far.

On Saturday mornings, I have been going to a yoga class at a local ashram, then I usually spend the rest of the day hanging out with friends, reading (fiction!), or catching up with things around the house.  So, it's not a complete sabbath, but at least one day a week when I am not completely focused on school.

Three Meetings

"For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them."  Matthew 18:20.

Over the four Sundays this month, I have worshiped at four different meetings.  In addition to one week at my home meeting, Freedom Friends Church, I had the opportunity to visit Friends at Multnomah Monthly Meeting, Oakland Quakers, and Salem Friends Meeting.  I felt warmly welcomed at each meeting, and they were all different, so I thought I'd share a little about those experiences.

Multnomah Monthly Meeting

Some friends and I got tickets to see The Book of Mormon in Portland on January 6, so I stayed at their house the night before.  The play was at 1pm, so I knew I would not have time to go to 10am worship, but I kept feeling a nudge to go to Multnomah Monthly Meeting that day.  I asked my friends if I could borrow their car to go to early worship, and they said that I could.

The Multnomah MM meetinghouse, from the meeting's website.

Early worship at Multnomah begins at 8:15am, and tends to be a relatively small and quiet group compared to 10am worship.  When I arrived, there was only one other person in the room, and we ended up with about a dozen.  I was happy to see my friend Joe S, and we sat together in companionable worship.  There was no vocal ministry, but the worship had a warm feeling to it.

After worship, we went around the circle twice.  The first time, we shared our names and anything that arose for us during worship.  Most people spoke.  I said that I don't get a chance to worship at Multnomah very often, but as I sat in worship, I remembered other times I had been there; I was grateful for the opportunity to visit and spent some time in prayer for the life of the meeting.  The second time around, we were invited to share anything that we wanted Friends to hold in the Light.  A young man who was worshiping at Multnomah for the first time―he had recently moved from a meeting in California―said that he thought the practice of going around the circle twice with these prompts was wonderful and he wished every meeting did it.

As we were getting ready to go downstairs for tea, Joe mentioned that he had seen Christina R walking by, and she would be giving a talk about Quaker Voluntary Service after 10am worship.  I was thrilled.  Christina and I have known each other for years online, but had never been in the same place at the same time.  I went downstairs and introduced myself, and we were both delighted to finally meet in person and have some time to talk before she went up for worship.

Oakland Quakers

A couple weeks later, I went down to Oakland for a long weekend to visit family.  A number of young adult Friends that I know have recently moved to the Bay Area, so I suggested a small-scale YAF invasion of Oakland Quakers, a worship group hosted by Pam C and Helen H in their living room on Sunday evenings.  (I met Pam and Helen at a Convergent Friends workshop at Ben Lomond Quaker Center a few years ago and had wanted to visit Oakland Friends ever since.)  So on Sunday night, I picked up my former housemate Eric B at a BART station, and we met up with Suzanne F for worship.

Again, there were about a dozen people gathered for worship, though that felt like a lot more in a living room than it did in Multnomah MM's large worship room!  The meeting was almost completely silent.  Near the end of worship, I felt led to read God's call on Samuel in I Samuel 3:1-11.  After reading, I held the Bible in my lap, waiting to hear if God would lead me to give a message as well as the reading, but I did not feel led to speak further, and that was the only vocal ministry.

At the end of worship, we all introduced ourselves and Pam asked me to say a little about Freedom Friends.  I described our independent, inclusive, Christ-centered meeting and then asked Suzanne if she would talk about New City Friends, the meeting she was a part of in Detroit, which sounds similar to Freedom Friends.  Friends from Oakland Friends shared how they had read through the entire Bible together and said that they do not often have vocal ministry in their meetings. 

After worship, Eric and I went to Suzanne's house for dinner.  Suzanne is another Friend that I had known for quite a while online, but had never met in person, and I am glad that we had the opportunity to meet and worship together. 

Salem Friends Meeting 

Although I am a member of Freedom Friends, it is not actually the closest Friends meeting to my house.  Salem Friends Meeting is in my neighborhood, less than a 10-minute walk away.  The two meetings have a good relationship and I try to visit a few times a year.

This past Sunday morning was drizzly and cold, and as I ate breakfast, I debated about whether I should go to worship at Freedom Friends or Salem Friends.  I was leaning toward going to Salem Friends, but felt guilty about missing worship at Freedom Friends two weeks in a row.  I was praying about it when suddenly this message appeared in my head:  

"God doesn't care where you go to meeting this morning.  You could stay home and read a novel, and that would be fine with God.  Go where you want!"

I laughed and headed out the door to walk over to Salem Friends.

Like Multnomah and Oakland Quakers, worship at Salem Friends is unprogrammed, and there were about a dozen people gathered for worship that day.  The worship was mostly silent, with one Friend sharing a message about her work with the Alternatives to Violence program at a local prison.

At the rise of meeting, we all introduced ourselves and then it was time for Salem Friends to decide where to give money.  Salem Friends owns their building and are committed to giving away extra money that they take in.  I believe they do this quarterly, and I always seem to be visiting on the Sundays when they discuss where to give!

Friends recommended some local charities―a women's crisis center, a halfway house, the humane society, which recently got a larger influx of dogs than usual―and Friends allocated amounts for each.  When the discussion seemed to be winding down, I asked if I could suggest something.  Friends were happy to listen, so I told them that, earlier that week, I had received a message from QuakerQuaker saying that the site was in need of money to continue.  I shared that QuakerQuaker has been an important community for me, and encouraged Salem Friends to contribute, and they did. 

Afterthoughts 

I am never quite sure what the distinction is between traveling ministry and intervisitation.  I think these visits were probably more like intervisitation than traveling ministry―I did not travel with a minute or under a concern, and any vocal ministry I gave felt somewhat beside the point.  But I did feel led to visit each of the meetings and I am glad that I followed those leadings.  And, as Lloyd Lee Wilson says, you never know why you are there.  I am grateful for the connections with Friends and the opportunities I have had to gather for worship.

Eldering III

After my last post, On Outrunning Your Guide, a Friend asked me if I had any advice on what to do if you hear someone else outrunning his or her guide.  This is really a question about eldering.  I have written in the past about serving as an elder for an individual minister and about working with an elder as a minister.  This post is about eldering within one's own meeting.


Dear Friend,

You asked if I had thoughts on what to do when you hear someone else outrunning his or her guide in giving vocal ministry.  I am a little ashamed to say that my initial reaction was, "Don't do anything!"  Taking a Friend to task for vocal ministry is the kind of behavior that has given "eldering" such a negative connotation, and I have spent a lot of time over the past few years trying to reclaim the positive definitions of the word!  Still, attending to the quality of worship and holding ministers accountable is an essential part of being an elder.

A few years ago, the Nominating Committee at University Friends Meeting spent some time reflecting on the question of eldering in response to vocal ministry and concluded that it was not possible to elder someone you do not love.  I think that is true for all kinds of eldering, but especially this kind.  It is something to approach with humility and grace.

As with vocal ministry, God may call anyone to serve as an elder at any time, but there are those in our meetings who have particular gifts of eldering.  An elder's primary task is to hold the meeting in prayer.  An elder may come to meeting early to ground the space, pray for the meeting throughout the week, or have a particular concern for the quality of worship.

If you are in meeting for worship and hear someone giving a message outrun his or her guide, my first recommendation is to go as deep as you can.  Pray for the minister and try to listen for the Spirit beneath the message.  Consider that the message may not be for you, and pray that it reaches the person who needs to hear it.

After the person giving ministry has finished, resist the temptation to respond!  I know that I sometimes feel an urge to smooth things over after a message that seems ungrounded, but I know that I would just be speaking out of my own discomfort and not at the prompting of the Spirit.

If you feel led to speak with the Friend who gave vocal ministry after the rise of meeting, test that leading.  Is the leading truly for you?  Is there someone else who may be feeling led to say something?  Does your meeting have a committee, such as Worship and Ministry, with a concern for the quality of worship?

If, after your discernment, you still feel clear that you have a message for the individual, ask to speak with him or her.  Be direct, speak with love, and say what God has put on your heart.  Then listen.  Giving vocal ministry is a vulnerable thing, and the Friend may have had the sense of outrunning the guide, or may be struggling with other issues.  Hold the encounter in prayer, before, during, and after.

People speaking without divine inspiration is one of the hazards of open worship.  If the meeting is grounded, it should be able to absorb the occasional misguided ministry.  But if this happens often or repeatedly, it is a symptom of larger problems that the meeting needs to address.

Some queries to consider:

• Does the meeting have a shared expectation that worship is a time to center and listen for the voice of the Holy Spirit?  
• Do members and attenders have a shared vocabulary to describe their experiences of feeling led to speak in worship?  
• Is there space for conversations about vocal ministry?  
• How does the meeting as a whole encourage vocal ministry and hold those who feel led to speak accountable?

Blessings,
Ashley

Vocal Ministry

I usually know ahead of time when I am going to give a message in open worship.  Occasionally a message will come to me in the middle of worship, but more often, I have some advance warning.  This can be as much as a month in advance or just a few hours.  

When I first wrote here about knowing that I would have to give a message in meeting, a Friend asked why I was so certain I would have to speak.  My immediate response (not what I wrote) was that I knew because I felt terrible.  What I actually wrote was that I have spoken in meeting enough times to be able to recognize certain physical signs when it is likely that I will have to speak.  All of those things―my heart racing, a tightness in my stomach, difficulty breathing, and shaking―happen when I get a message ahead of time, they just last much longer.

Sometimes I will know that I am going to speak because a certain word, phrase, or image comes into focus, like a pinpoint of light, and that is all I can see.  Other times, I feel like I have the message in its entirety, but a clear sense that now is not the time to give it.  The hardest thing for me is having the feeling that I will give a message, but no words―no sense of what that message will be.  Trying to figure out the content of the message just makes things worse.

The benefit to knowing that I will be giving a message in advance is that it gives me time to prepare.  I can look up Bible verses or quotes so that they are ready, and I have time to find support in the form of an elder to ground me, information about the schedule, or water and a snack to keep me going.  Sometimes I write down a few notes.

The downside is that I have time to freak out and question everything.  Just before worship is usually when what Jane Fenn Hoskens called "the reasoner" shows up.  Call it what you will―the forces of darkness or my own insecurities―this is the voice that tells me that I do not have a message and that I never have.  It says that I am delusional and self-aggrandizing―what makes me think I am so special that God would speak through me?

This voice is very convincing for a while, but one thing I have learned is that it makes mistakes and goes too far.  Eventually, it will say something like, "You know God isn't real."  And that makes me laugh.  Because I know that God is real and that the voice is desperate.  This helps me to find my center again and focus on the task at hand: delivering the message.

Then, finally, it is time to give the message.  I am always surprised by the messages I give.  Even when I think I know what the message will be, it changes.  Sometimes the messages that come before it shape my message.  Other times, I am led in a different direction than I expected as I am speaking.  I try to leave space before and after I speak, to make sure that I am following my guide.

Afterward, I almost always feel better.  It is a relief to have given the message.  I usually feel tired and vulnerable, and very hungry and thirsty―empty in every respect.  I feel both terrified that I will have to do it again and terrified that I will never be asked do it again.  

It is an awesome thing to speak on behalf of God, and I am grateful to be a part of a faith community that believes that we can.

Deep Worship

"Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me."  Psalm 42:7.

I have had several conversations recently with Friends who are longing for deep worship.  In my experience, deep worship is a rare and powerful thing, impossible to fake. It is a gift from God, which can be nurtured by Friends who live deeply in the Spirit, but is not something you can manufacture.

Many Friends say that they want deep worship, but we are not always good at saying what that means.  For me, it is a corporate experience of the presence of the living God―a time of worship that is so drenched in the Spirit that everyone can feel it and we are all changed by the experience.  

I have most often experienced deep worship in silence, but unprogrammed Friends do not have the monopoly on it.  Sometimes the singing, prayer, and prepared messages in semi-programmed or programmed meetings for worship bring all of our hearts together so that we can better listen to the voice of God out of the silence.

Expecting to have deep worship every week at meeting may lead to disappointment, but we can always hope for it.  Here are a few of the things I have learned that can encourage deeper worship:

• Keeping a daily spiritual practice.  There are many spiritual practices and it is important to find the right one for you―one that you can do on a regular basis.  Spiritual practices keep the embers of worship alive throughout the week.

• Worshiping regularly with others who are seeking the same depth of worship.  In the School of the Spirit residencies, we spent an hour each morning in worship together.  On the first day, the worship was good, but could be a little superficial.  By the fourth or fifth day, the worship was deep and rich.

• Coming to worship with the expectation that you will hear from God.  In our meetings, God speaks through us, directly and through the vocal ministry of other Friends.  We must prepare for that possibility each time we gather together and know that we may be changed by it.

When have you experienced deep worship?  What have you learned about how to encourage and prepare for it?

Semi-Programmed II

I got the news a few weeks ago that I will be leading semi-programmed worship at the next School of the Spirit residency.  I am very excited to share the way Friends at Freedom Friends Church worship with the rest of my class. 

It's not that there is a lack of worship at the residencies.  Each morning after breakfast, we spend an hour in worship together.  This is one of my favorite things about the program.  After more than a year of meeting together, our worship is rich and deep.  There are several gifted vocal ministers in our class and many more who ground the space with their presence.

But until now, it has all been unprogrammed worship.

I don't want to give the wrong impression, I love unprogrammed worship.  After spending three years sojourning with University Friends Meeting, I feel nearly as at home in unprogrammed worship as in semi-programmed worship.  And I have cherished the times when I have been able to sit with Friends in extended unprogrammed worship. 

But I really miss singing in worship.  By all accounts, my School of the Spirit class is an unusually sing-y class.  We sing together fairly often, and we sing well.  Most of the singing, however, happens during the free time, or as an afterthought.  I miss singing as a way for all of us to come together and start focusing our attention on God.

So I asked if I could lead semi-programmed worship at the next residency and the teachers said yes!

They also suggested I ask someone to elder for me.  I hadn't thought about having an elder, but it seemed like a good idea, so I asked my classmate, Mark W, to be my elder and he agreed to.  He asked if there was anything he could do before the residency other than holding me in prayer, and I said that sounded perfect.

I also asked another classmate, Kristin O, to lead the music.  As much as I like to sing, leading singing is not my favorite thing.  Kristin is great at leading singing, though, and just asked which songs I would like.  She also asked when we would be having the semi-programmed worship, and whether there would be time to rehearse beforehand.

I am grateful for all this support and preparation, but it also strikes me as kind of funny.  My original idea was to give everyone a taste of how we worship at Freedom Friends, but I can already tell that this is going to be much more polished than worship at Freedom Friends ever is.

All of this reminds me of some conversations I have had recently about how different Freedom Friends looks from the outside than from the inside.  I am surprised by the impact this little church has had on the wider Quaker world, especially the Quaker blogosphere.  As a member of Freedom Friends, I feel honored when it is mentioned by someone from outside the church (as it was on Micah B's blog), but I know that the reality is a lot messier than our image sometimes is.

When I have led worship at Freedom Friends, it has usually been a last-minute thing.  Someone else was not available, and I am there and able to lead, so I do.  We do sing almost every week, but we don't really sing very well.  There are a few people with great voices, but for the most part, it is not something you would want to listen to.  It is all very homespun.

It is a church that struggles.  Many of our members and attenders are living with mental and physical disabilities.  Quite a few are unemployed and no one makes much money.  We consider it a good month when we can make rent.  Sometimes we can't afford to pay the pastor the tiny amount we give her to release her for ministry.

But we truly care for one another.  And that is part of what I hope to express in leading semi-programmed worship at the residency.  The way we worship, by singing together and sharing our gratitudes and petitions, shows how we are involved in each other's lives.  We may not always sound great, but we are happy to pray for each other.  It is a real community, which means that it is sometimes messy, and I am grateful to be a part of it.

Semi-Programmed

A few months ago, a friend from an unprogrammed meeting wrote me an email.  Among other things, he asked about my experiences with semi-programmed worship.  He said,

I sense that it has "life in it" for you, and I would like to know how you experience it in contrast to how you experience unprogrammed worship.

When I visited Freedom Friends Church this past weekend, I remembered our email exchange.  The email I wrote back to him was one of the most thorough descriptions of worship at Freedom Friends I have written, and I thought I'd share  it (with a few minor changes) here.

Dear Friend,

I have been thinking about your question, what has life for me in semi-programed worship. 

At Freedom Friends Church (FFC), our programing is pretty light.  We start by singing 3-4 songs (usually accompanied by Alivia on acoustic guitar, often people will request their favorites), followed by a few minutes of centering silence.  Then the pastor, Peggy, asks Friends to share out of the silence things they are grateful for ("gratitudes").  After everyone who wants to has shared, she closes with vocal prayer, then asks Friends to share places where we need God's help ("petitions").   When that is done, she closes again with vocal prayer, then leads us into about 45 minutes of unprogrammed worship.

All of these pieces are meaningful for me.  I love to sing, and when I came to my unprogrammed meeting in Seattle, that was the part I missed most.  I have tried joining different choirs (including the Seattle Peace Chorus, which has a membership pretty similar to a liberal Friends meeting), but there is something different about singing praise to God with members of my faith community. 

The gratitudes and petitions give us a chance to share our joys and sorrows with God and with the community―we really know what is going on in each other's lives.  I frequently wish there was a place for this kind of sharing in my unprogrammed meeting in Seattle (instead, it sometimes comes out during worship). 

Some of the folks at FFC can be a little twitchy and I think the time for singing and sharing helps us focus and center and makes the waiting worship deeper.  Our pastor stresses that the format of the meeting is a spiritual practice that we can do every day, not just on Sunday morning.  We are also aware that we are all learning together, and there is a tenderness toward each other's messages that I haven't always found in other meetings.

As you can see, I can go on and on about FFC!  Although I have had many Spirit-filled experiences in unprogrammed meetings, FFC is my spiritual home.  I would be happy to talk more about it or answer any questions, either in person or by email.

With love,

Ashley

A Thin Place

When I walked into meeting today, Jana was there. I was thrilled to see her. After she was hit by a car several weeks ago, no one knew what was going to happen.  Her recovery has been incredible, and last Tuesday, she got to go home.  Because of her broken leg, she is in a wheelchair, and she has months of various kinds of therapy ahead, but she looks amazing.

Jana seemed surprised by all the attention she was getting.  She said that people keep telling her that she sounds just like herself, and she wonders how else she would be.  Knowing that she would be mobbed if they stayed out in the social hall, Jana's husband took her into meeting early.  Others joined and we all settled.

The meeting today had a special quality.  We were silent for longer than usual, and three weighty Friends gave messages out of that silence.  One in particular spoke to me.  A Friend shared about a family in our meeting—a grandson, Milo, was born last week, and his grandmother, Lynn, is in the process of dying.

This message struck a chord in me because I was that baby. 

My mom was eight months pregnant with me when her mother died.  I know it was an incredibly hard time for her and the rest of my family, but it has also been a blessing for me.  Even though I was born in a time of great sorrow, I have always known that my birth was a cause for great joy.

It may surprise Jana that so many people are happy that she is herself, but her accident was a reminder to all of us that she is a miracle.  And the message today reminded me that we are all miracles—Lynn and Milo are miracles, I am a miracle, and you are too.  I think it is easier to remember that during times like birth and death, and I am grateful to be able to remember it now as well.