Quaker Worship: Silence, Ministry, and the Sacraments
As taught in the Quaker / Friends tradition
How Friends wait in silence, let the Spirit minister, and find the sacraments inward.
Among the gathered churches of the seventeenth century, the Religious Society of Friends — the people the world nicknamed Quakers — settled into a manner of worship unlike almost any other in Christendom. Friends meet, sit down together, and wait in silence. There is no appointed liturgy, no read prayer, no choir, and no sermon prepared in advance; and in the unprogrammed tradition that descends most directly from the movement's founders there is no pastor standing to lead. Out of the shared stillness, any worshipper — man or woman, learned or unlettered — may rise to speak, pray, or sing if a leading of the Spirit is felt; and the meeting may also close without a single word having been spoken aloud. To outsiders this can look like the absence of worship.
By the end of this lesson
- Explain why Friends treat worship as inward, silent waiting upon God rather than a set liturgy, and state Barclay's point that the worship consists "not in silence, as silence; but in an holy dependence of the mind upon God."
- Trace the Quaker view of ministry to Fox's opening that being bred at Oxford or Cambridge "was not enough to fit and qualify men to be ministers of Christ," and to Barclay's argument against a "stinted maintenance" that would make a minister a "hireling."
- Summarize Barclay's teaching in Propositions XII-XIII that there is "but one baptism" of the Spirit and fire, that water baptism was John's figure now ceased, and that the true Supper is the inward feeding upon Christ rather than the outward bread and wine.
- Read the four anchor texts as one argument: John 4:23-24 (spirit and truth), Matthew 18:20 (Christ in the midst), 1 Corinthians 14:26-33 (ordered open ministry, including women's), and 1 Thessalonians 5:19-21 (do not quench, but test).
- State fairly where Friends differ from most of Christianity — no outward baptism or communion, and no ordained, salaried clergy — and distinguish the Quaker position from the believer's-baptism practice of the Anabaptists.
Scripture
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