Quaker silence

[Halbhh]

Update: To me, this thread is about what there is in the silent gathering that some Quakers do (the older "Meeting for Worship" kind) that appeals to us on some level, and why, and how it might be in some ways an aid for some believers in Christ Jesus that hear too much of the noise of the world to better pray as Paul wrote of in Romans chapter 8 -- how we don't know enough on our own often, about what to pray for, deeper things than we understand at times, and need the spirit to intercede and pray for us. How we might better seek the Lord (Matthew chapter 7), and wait on the Lord, and pray with the spirit (Romans chapter 8).

(Also see post #14 for a good article gathering quotes from many Christians on this same silence/seeking/meditation/prayer).

====

"Quaker -- a member of the Religious Society of Friends, a Christian movement founded by George Fox c. 1650 and devoted to peaceful principles. Central to the Quakers' belief is the doctrine of the “Inner Light,” or sense of Christ's direct working in the soul. This has led them to reject both formal ministry and all set forms of worship."


" Around 11% of Friends practice waiting worship, or unprogrammed worship(more commonly known today as Meeting for Worship), where the order of service is not planned in advance, is predominantly silent, and may include unprepared vocal ministry from those present. " Quakers - Wikipedia


"Wisdom from an Early Quaker
Isaac Penington
"After the mind is in some measure turned to the Lord – his quickenings felt, his seed beginning to arise and spring up in the heart – then the flesh is to be silent before him, and the soul to wait upon him (and for his further appearings) in that measure of life which is already revealed.

"Now, this is a great thing: to know flesh silenced, to feel the reasoning thoughts and discourses of the fleshly mind stilled, and the wisdom, light, and guidance of God’s spirit waited for. For we are to come into the poverty of self, into the abasedness, into the nothingness, into the silence of our spirit before the Lord; into the putting off of all our knowledge, wisdom, understanding, abilities, all that we are, have done, or can do, out of this measure of life, into which we are to travel, that we may be clothed and filled with the nature, Spirit, and power of the Lord.

"God is to be worshipped in spirit, in his own power and life, and this is at his own disposal.
...
Waiting in Silence


Isaiah 40:31 But those who wait upon the LORD will renew their strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not faint.


Back after I prayed to God to bring me to Him, and then slid backwards off a 2nd story roof above large rocks, prayed "Help!" in 1/2 of a second, and woke up without bruises perfectly balanced on a porch rail below with only a superficial cut (and scar) to show for it past my own testimony....

For a time I pursued a wonderful person who wanted to attend some Quaker services, the old kind, where they wait for the Spirit.

So we did.

Altogether I've been to 3 of the services where we sat together, in a circle, and waited, in silence.

It was very very good.

There's something wonderful about tamping down the ego, and having others tamp down their ego, especially for me back in that time, when I'd not yet found a church home, and it was all new again, and all unknown....

We waited about 10 minutes one time, and then someone spoke.

It's such a relief to wait, to be silent!

I kept waiting for someone to destroy it, to speak up, because of fear or ego. But they did not. Minute after minute.

 

[Albion]

Right. I always think of the kind of worship you're describing whenever someone who attends a Pentecostal church or an evangelical church (with rock band on stage) puts down the other varieties of worship as boring, unemotional, and/or mechanical.

 

[redleghunter]

Do we have any Quakers who post here?

I pinged the Amish forum a few times no response.

 

[tampasteve]

There is a Quaker church near me that has services like this. It is not for me, but I can definitely see the appeal for some people.

 

[timothyu]

Would not God prefer we listen rather than go on about ourselves?

 

[Halbhh]

I just wonder, how many would be willing to go to a Quaker service like that? Isn't it the same part of us that wants to light candles or have a singing service? We are in a sense waiting on the Lord in those moments.

 

[Pethesedzao]

"Quaker -- a member of the Religious Society of Friends, a Christian movement founded by George Fox c. 1650 and devoted to peaceful principles. Central to the Quakers' belief is the doctrine of the “Inner Light,” or sense of Christ's direct working in the soul. This has led them to reject both formal ministry and all set forms of worship."


" Around 11% of Friends practice waiting worship, or unprogrammed worship(more commonly known today as Meeting for Worship), where the order of service is not planned in advance, is predominantly silent, and may include unprepared vocal ministry from those present. " Quakers - Wikipedia


"Wisdom from an Early Quaker
Isaac Penington
"After the mind is in some measure turned to the Lord – his quickenings felt, his seed beginning to arise and spring up in the heart – then the flesh is to be silent before him, and the soul to wait upon him (and for his further appearings) in that measure of life which is already revealed.

"Now, this is a great thing: to know flesh silenced, to feel the reasoning thoughts and discourses of the fleshly mind stilled, and the wisdom, light, and guidance of God’s spirit waited for. For we are to come into the poverty of self, into the abasedness, into the nothingness, into the silence of our spirit before the Lord; into the putting off of all our knowledge, wisdom, understanding, abilities, all that we are, have done, or can do, out of this measure of life, into which we are to travel, that we may be clothed and filled with the nature, Spirit, and power of the Lord.

"God is to be worshipped in spirit, in his own power and life, and this is at his own disposal.
...
Waiting in Silence


Isaiah 40:31 But those who wait upon the LORD will renew their strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not faint.


Back after I prayed to God to bring me to Him, and then slid backwards off a 2nd story roof above large rocks, prayed "Help!" in 1/2 of a second, and woke up without bruises perfectly balanced on a porch rail below with only a superficial cut (and scar) to show for it past my own testimony....

For a time I pursued a wonderful person who wanted to attend some Quaker services, the old kind, where they wait for the Spirit.

So we did.

Altogether I've been to 3 of the services where we sat together, in a circle, and waited, in silence.

It was very very good.

There's something wonderful about tamping down the ego, and having others tamp down their ego, especially for me back in that time, when I'd not yet found a church home, and it was all new again, and all unknown....

We waited about 10 minutes one time, and then someone spoke.

It's such a relief to wait, to be silent!

I kept waiting for someone to destroy it, to speak up, because of fear or ego. But they did not. Minute after minute.

Sad but tis true the Quaker movement has forsaken her first love

 

[timothyu]

Sad but tis true the Quaker movement has forsaken her first love

How so?

 

[tampasteve]

Do we have any Quakers who post here?

I believe I have seen some that say they are, but they are not one of the listed "Faith Groups", so they would have to sign up as just "Christian", non-denom, or something else. Unless it has been added to the list at some point.

 

[Halbhh]

Sad but tis true the Quaker movement has forsaken her first love

The churches with the programmed services, do they some sometimes have the Meeting for Worship type also, like once or more times a year, or do they have a silent time during regular services?

 

[Halbhh]

Would not God prefer we listen rather than go on about ourselves?

I only quoted a part of
Waiting in Silence

and the rest is really good.

 

[PloverWing]

I am not Quaker, but I attended the Meeting for Worship of a local Friends' Meeting for a few years, and one of my children currently attends a college of Quaker heritage, in which some of the meetings of the student body are conducted in an unprogrammed Quaker style. I love my current denominational home, but if the liturgical Protestant churches were to suddenly all disappear from the earth tomorrow, I would probably become a Quaker.

I love the silent Meetings. Even in my current worship tradition, sometimes when there is Just So Much Talking, I wish we incorporated some periods of extended silence into our liturgy. My private prayer life has lots of silence in it.

 

[timothyu]

I wish we incorporated some periods of extended silence into our liturgy. My private prayer life has lots of silence in it.

Exactly. Private is what it says, a meeting place between us and God with no interference. Churches cannot survive unless we focus on them rather than having just a private relationship with God. The ceremony, confusion and hubbub are essential to it's survival.

 

[Halbhh]

This article there also looks interesting --

Saving Silence
Unlearning the Sin of Curiosity
Nathaniel Peters

“Silence is not the exile of speech. It is the love of the one Word.” —Robert Cardinal Sarah

I go to look up a newspaper article on a dispute between a high-ranking judge and a popular journalist. In the middle of the article, I find some unexpected headlines inviting me to click. The frankness of this would-be enticement makes it laughable, and gives me little pause as I continue on with my article. But it serves as a reminder of the noise that characterizes our present age. Sin is not only easy to find, but it comes after you. We are prompted and guided to distraction, coaxed into desiring things we never thought we needed or needed to know.

Earlier Christians had a word for this: curiosity. Curiosity might be the besetting sin of our time. On the face of it, such a statement seems absurd, or perhaps it belongs to a more legalistic period of Christian life that modern believers have happily outgrown. Curiosity is the desire to understand, which we consider a good thing; schools and responsible parents encourage it, and our economy rewards it. But earlier Christians recognized that the desire for knowledge is not necessarily pure. This should not surprise us, since we recognize that our other appetites can go astray in a number of ways. In his
Intellectual Appetite: A Theological Grammar, Paul Griffiths notes that all Latin Christians from Tertullian through Bossuet in the seventeenth century recognized curiosity as a disordered appetite for knowledge that we do not have or need to know. This they distinguished from studiousness, an eager and rightly ordered pursuit of the truth.

In On the Trinity, Saint Augustine of Hippo makes the distinction this way: The studious are prompted by a love of what they know. The curious hate what they do not know with “anxious hatred,” wanting to reduce the number of unknowns to zero, to extinguish them. Curiosity wants new knowledge or intimacy with something so it can use that knowledge to control and dominate. It is the appetite for the ownership of new knowledge. It is concerned with novelty and knowing what others do not know.

The studious want to participate lovingly in what they know and respond to it as a gift, with intimacy. Saint Thomas Aquinas calls studiousness a kind of temperance, a moderation of our natural desires, like chastity or moderation in our food and drink.
...

...For Sarah, silence is an open space in which encounter with God is possible...

...Or in the words of Saint John of the Cross: “The Father spoke one Word, which was his Son, and this Word he always speaks in eternal silence, and in silence it must be heard by the soul.”
...

Saving Silence

 

[Francis Drake]

My wife and I visited a few times with the local Friends at one of the very earliest meeting houses in England.
In my view they have gone a long long way from their roots and I could find no real evidence that they were even Christian.
George Fox would be turning in his grave if he could see where they are now.
The topics they raised after their period of silence was invariably left wing PC nonsense with no sense of Christ's redemption.

 

[Pethesedzao]

If you want to know the template for Christian worship when assembling together turn to 1 Corinthians 14

 

[Halbhh]

My wife and I visited a few times with the local Friends at one of the very earliest meeting houses in England.
In my view they have gone a long long way from their roots and I could find no real evidence that they were even Christian.
George Fox would be turning in his grave if he could see where they are now.
The topics they raised after their period of silence was invariably left wing PC nonsense with no sense of Christ's redemption.

Sorry to hear that there in that location. Having only been to 3 meetings in only 3 locations, if I am remembering clearly what I heard one time was someone speaking up about being silent or not distracted and being available or our relation with God, another time I think it was about reaching out to the community,, and another time about doing something about their building.

 

[Halbhh]

My wife and I visited a few times with the local Friends at one of the very earliest meeting houses in England.
In my view they have gone a long long way from their roots and I could find no real evidence that they were even Christian.
George Fox would be turning in his grave if he could see where they are now.
The topics they raised after their period of silence was invariably left wing PC nonsense with no sense of Christ's redemption.

Yes, without Christ it becomes an empty other thing.

It's also good though to consider what they originally had (and hopefully some still may), and which is actually something helpful -- seeking the Lord (Matthew chapter 7, v 7-12). Post #14 above also has some more about how silence can help in that seeking. That's the part that seems good to know can help some people, to be aware of the value of it, that it could help some in churches, and perhaps to make such services as for example Good Friday services done with much silence, or other special times of silence, a way to help some who will greatly benefit by waiting on the Lord, seeking Him.

 

[timothyu]

Are they actively living what Jesus taught as they have not let the church do it for them?

 

[Bumble Bee]

Posting to watch and respond later when I have time.