Worship sharing focuses on a particular question and helps people to express their own experience. This way of being together can draw people into sacred space, where they remove their usual defenses, and encounter each other in “that which is eternal.” When worship sharing, Friends often share more deeply than they would in normal conversation.
The guidelines for worship sharing have been evolving among Friends for many years, drawing on a number of different sources.
How to Set Up a Space for Worship Sharing
The convener, or leader, should define a question as the focus for sharing. The question should be simple, open ended, and oriented toward individual experience. It might be a question about the spiritual journey: “How is God moving in my life today? Where do I experience beauty most intensely?” It might be related to an issue that is exercising or dividing the meeting: “What is it that frightens me most about this controversy? What do I most long for in our community?” It might relate to a book the group has been reading together: “What touched me most deeply? Which character seems most like me when I was a child?”
The question should be chosen prayerfully to meet the particular needs of the group at that time. A list of ideas is below. Please use them as starting points, and adapt them to the needs of the group.
Boundaries to Keep in Mind
The convener should explain the basic rules for worship sharing;
- Reach as deeply as you can into the sacred center of your life.
- Speak out of the silence, and leave a period of silence between speakers.
- Speak from your own experience, about your own experience. Concentrate on feelings and changes rather than on thoughts or theories.
- Do not respond to what anyone else has said, either to praise or to refute.
- Listen carefully and deeply to what is spoken.
- Expect to speak only once, until everyone has had a chance to speak.
- Respect the confidentiality of what is shared.
Some leaders feel that going around the circle makes it easier for everyone to speak. Others prefer to ask people to speak as they are ready. Explain which practice you would like to follow. In either case, participants should know that they have the option of passing or not speaking.
Allow at least half an hour for a group of five or six to share their responses to a single question, and at least an hour for a larger group. If you have more than a dozen people, it would be better to divide into smaller groups to make sure that everyone has a chance
to participate.
Enter into worshipful silence and begin.
Queries for Worship Sharing
Prepared by Michael Gibson, 2006
Well-Being
- How has my week affected meeting for worship, and vice versa?
- What are we as a meeting community doing to prepare our children for corporate and private worship?
- How do I treat myself in meeting for worship? What adjectives might I use to describe how I am with myself? How do I relate to others in meeting for worship?
- What am I as a parent, grandparent, or teacher doing to nurture the spiritual lives of children within my spheres of influence, and how do I honor or nurture their sense of wonder, prayer, and worship?
Living in Community
- How do I hold in my heart, particularly in worship, those within the meeting community whose experience may be radically different than, or seemingly contradictory to, mine? How do I relate to meeting members between meetings for worship?
- Do I receive the vocal ministry of Friends free of cynicism, bitterness, jealousy, impatience, aggravation, or comparison of my own gifts and abilities to those of others?
- What do I “do” with messages I hear that speak to my condition? How do I deal with what I do not find helpful?
- What does a covered or gathered meeting ask of me? How does it affect me? How does it touch my understanding of community? Of God, Christ, or the Spirit?
- What are my responsibilities to myself, to the community, and to the Spirit in meeting for worship?
- How does my experience of meeting for worship compare to my experience of private prayer?
Worship
- What has been my experience of worship (in and out of meeting for worship)? What does worship mean for me in my daily life?
- What were my earliest experiences of corporate worship? How have my understandings and experiences of worship changed over the years? What about meeting for worship is most important to me now? Where do I hope to grow now in relation to worship?
- What, if any, are my expectations of the First Day worship hour?
- How do I prepare for meeting for worship?
- What can I do (or how can I be) to foster or nurture a living silence?
Faithfulness
- When I receive a message or prompting in worship, am I faithful in my response to that prompting? How or how not?
- Who or what calls me into worship? How do I experience this call?
- What, if anything, helps me to experience the Presence in the midst? How do I respond to that Presence? (If “Presence” does not have meaning for you, what word(s) might you use that has significance for you?)
For personal reflection
- What might my daily routine and my relationships look like if I fully and consistently carried the attitude of meeting for worship throughout each week?
- There is an assumption here that no one does this all the time. Please be honest, but gentle, with yourself.
Last updated December 18, 2025.