Business Meeting: What is Quaker and What is White?

Five 2-hour sessions: Monday 2/3 – Friday 2/7 (3-5pm Eastern / 12-2pm Pacific) The Spirit can run strong in Meeting for Worship for the Conduct of Business but may be heard and understood very differently depending on the recipient’s life experiences. A broad and deep pool of interpretations leads to richer clarity and better communal…

Workshop Description

Five 2-hour sessions: Monday 2/3 – Friday 2/7 (3-5pm Eastern / 12-2pm Pacific)

The Spirit can run strong in Meeting for Worship for the Conduct of Business but may be heard and understood very differently depending on the recipient’s life experiences. A broad and deep pool of interpretations leads to richer clarity and better communal discernment if the community has the capacity to hear all voices.

Since at least the middle of the 1900’s, the unprogrammed/liberal branch of Quakers in the United States has been largely composed of White, middle-class, college-educated Friends. These Friends developed a Meeting culture that reflected their openings to God, and also reflected the social conventions they took for granted. Some of the practices we, their successors, have inherited may enable and encourage Spirit-led discernment in only a subset of attendees and may impede or even stifle the moving of Spirit in Friends with different cultural backgrounds.

This workshop will look at the conventions of Quaker business processes with an eye towards disentangling practices that cement foundational spiritual principles from those that reflect White, middle-class, college-educated cultural norms. The purpose is to engage a conversation within Friends Meetings in the United States. The workshop may have special relevance to clerks and members of Ministry and Worship committees, but our hope is to generate reflection and transformation among the Friends on the benches.

The agenda, spread over five sessions, will be:

I. Introductions
II. Overview of workshop
III. Hierarchy and privilege in Quaker meetings
IV. Faith and practice are not the same thing
V. The spiritual grounding of business meeting
VI. Trust
VII. Language
VIII. Vocal Ministry (The speaking part)
IX. Vocal Ministry (The listening part)
X. Addressing Harm
XI. Summary and Invitation

The basis for the workshop is a manuscript written by the Jade and Michael, which will be shared with participants in advance. Prior reading of the relevant sections before each day’s session is strongly encouraged.

The format will be opening and closing worship, presentations on the day’s material, individual reflection, and discussion in pairs, small groups, and the full group.”

Leader Experience

Jade and Michael have both led many seminars, classes, workshops, and second hours, especially on Friends history and practices, under the care of our meeting’s Continuing Quaker Education committee and Change Group. Michael has been teaching “Quakerism 101”for over ten years and regularly leads the “Silence & Light for Quaker Newcomers”eRetreat for FGC. Jade and Michael co-led “Quakerism 101”at the Gathering in 2021 and 2022; Michael led “Where Does Encounter Lead?”at the 2024 Encountering Spirit retreat.

Both Jade and Michael have served as clerks of Adelphi Friends Meeting and the board of trustees of a Friends’ school. Both have also served on the boards of other Quaker-related institutions.

In a non-Quaker context, Jade and Michael have separately led scores of workshops and trainings on topics ranging from nonviolence and civil disobedience to diversity, law, economic statistics and software development.