Practicing Contemplative Worship: A Quaker Tradition

Reported By: Shelby McCormick

Photographed By: Yolanda Diaz

         Contemplative worship is a long-standing Quaker tradition of unstructured worship. Traditional Friends meetings operate without a pastor or priest presiding over them; instead, they gather together and enter into a space of silence to become receptive to what the Spirit wishes to say to the group.

         Professor of Biblical and Quaker Studies Paul Anderson has been helping students tap into George Fox University’s (GFU) Quaker roots for the last five years by offering weekly times of contemplative worship.

         “Something that I think is of value, at George Fox, a university founded by Quakers, is to get a sense of Quaker practice and Quaker worship,” said Anderson. “There is a lot of value in getting a sense of a particular heritage in addition to one’s own.”  

         Anderson begins the sessions by reading a passage from “A Testament of Devotion” by Thomas Kelley. Following the reading, the group enters into 15 minutes of silent worship.

         “People are welcome to speak out of the silence if they feel led, lead a prayer, or just wait and see what God might be saying to them,” said Anderson.

         They close the session with a brief conversation about people’s individual experience with the silence during that meeting.

  “The crisis of silence becomes like a prayer list. As concerns come to mind, I lift each of those to God. After a few minutes, after my mind runs out of clutter, then I am receptive to whatever God may be speaking to me,” said Anderson.

         For some students, the experience can come as a shock the first few times. “When people are first trying it out, they can be really awkward with the silence which is okay, it is countercultural,” said Anderson.

         For other students, the time of silence is meaningful. “I hear, ‘I really needed this, I’ve just been working so hard on my assignments, I just needed a time of silence,’” said Anderson.

         While Anderson spoke to the importance of private prayer time, he also believes in sacramentally meeting with other people to worship.

         “Jesus said where two or three are gathering in my name, I am present in their midst, so I do understand that as a sacramental promise,” said Anderson. “As we gather together, Christ really is present, and sometimes God will speak to us through other people.”

         SPIL credit is offered for these meetings that take place in Hoover 250 on Wednesdays from 2:15 p.m. to 2:45 p.m.