Daily Extended Meeting for Worship

Your expectations and objectives for the week

We meet for worship after the traditional (unprogrammed) manner of Friends, in waiting stillness, opening our souls to God’s love and direct instruction.

Some of our hopes for our daily extended meeting for worship are to:
- Offer a meeting place for Friends at the Gathering who feel led to nurture their unmediated intimacy with the Divine
- Give Friends an opportunity to dedicate their mornings to extended adoration, free from the time strictures usually present around corporate worship in modern days
- Provide a grounded, centering space, where any Gathering Friend may retreat for quiet and spiritual solace during morning workshop hours, as needed
- Nurture the emergence of a spiritual community and fellowship, which can offer encouragement to Friends as we seek to give sustained attention to God’s presence in our lives
- Have an opportunity for us, today’s Friends, to savor that power of Quaker worship that is felt when time boundaries are loosened and a larger space for experiencing God’s presence is created
- Be a community of devotion where the larger Gathering can be held in the Light, including the multiple activities taking place at the same time as daily extended meeting for worship.

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A list of the specific areas or topics that you expect to cover

We sit together in silence, emptying ourselves and surrendering to God's care, longing and reaching for the healing food and embrace of our Inward Mother and Teacher, like the little ones whom Jesus is said to have spoken of: “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” Matthew 19:14.

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A rough description of the format

"The first that enters into the place of your meeting... turn in thy mind to the light, and wait upon God singly, as if none were present but the Lord; and here thou art strong. Then the next that comes in, let them in simplicity of heart sit down and turn in to the same light, and wait in the spirit; and so all the rest coming in, in the fear of the Lord, sit down in pure stillness and silence of all flesh, and wait in the light...." (Alexander Parker, 1660)
We put our trust in God to gather us, lead us, speak to us. As we receive the ministry of the Spirit interiorly, we may also be guided to bring its ministry to the body of worshipers vocally or otherwise. In the longer silence of extended worship, we are blessed with the space for the deeper listening and the clearer discernment that Spirit-led ministry requires.
A loving community forms as a result of our being gathered by the Spirit, which becomes a precious part of our worship. Before we adjourn at noon, we have a moment where Friends can share with the group their experience of the morning together.

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Specific recommendations for advanced reading, or reading assignments during the Gathering

No particular reading is required to participate in daily extended meeting for worship, although Quaker worship can be enhanced by regular devotional reading and practices. Reading materials dealing with the spiritual discoveries of early Friends, as they boldly and faithfully ventured into the search for immediate communion with the Spirit, can be especially helpful and inspiring.
I would wholeheartedly entreat Friends to read the testimonies of our forebears in the seventeenth century. George Fox’s Journal and Epistles, particularly, are excellent windows into the sort of spiritual life that nourishes and is nourished by Friends’ expectant worship.

Some other resources may be:
- Robert Barclay’s Apology, propositions 10 (on ministry), 11 (on worship), and 13 (on communion)
- William C. Braithwaite’s The Beginnings of Quakerism, particularly chapter IV (The People in White Raiment)
- Four Doors To Meeting For Worship, by William Taber, Pendle Hill Pamphlet 306
- Prophetic Ministry, by Howard Brinton, Pendle Hill Pamphlet 54
- Testament Of Devotion by Thomas Kelly
- Worship After The Manner Of Friends, by Norval E. Webb
- On Speaking Out Of The Silence, Vocal Ministry In The Unprogrammed Meeting For Worship, by Douglas V. Steere, Pendle Hill Pamphlet 182
- Invitation To A Deeper Communion, by Marcelle Martin, Pendle Hill Pamphlet 366
- Quality And Depth Of Worship And Ministry, by The Committee On Eldership And Oversight of Britain Yearly Meeting
- Listening Spirituality, Vol. II, Corporate Spiritual Practice among Friends, chapter 1, by Patricia Loring (chapter 1 contains a bibliography on worship)
- Shaped By The Light, The Quaker Experience Of Worship, Community And Transformation, by Michael Wajda And Alison Levie
- The Quaker Reader, and anthology that includes a sampling of writings from early Friends, selected and introduced by Jessamyn West and published by Pendle Hill.
(Most, if not all, of these materials, can be obtained through the FGC bookstore.)

There are very helpful resources on the web, with important texts about Quaker history and Quaker worship, some out of print:
www.qhpress.org
www.quakerinfo.com
www.strecorsoc.org

A site offering a good sampling of current Quaker spiritual experience is:
http://www.quakerquaker.org/