Deepening at the Root

Deep worship, vocal ministry and leadings for action all arise from the same Source. While entering into that Source is partly Grace, there are practices which can help us find our way there, more fully and more often. We will engage in experiential and immediate ways of entering this Root. I have been living questions…

Workshop Description

Deep worship, vocal ministry and leadings for action all arise from the same Source. While entering into that Source is partly Grace, there are practices which can help us find our way there, more fully and more often. We will engage in experiential and immediate ways of entering this Root.

I have been living questions for several years around how we Friends, myself included, can better live out a more connected path of both mystical awareness and Spirit-led action in the world. While modern Friends have tended to divide ourselves into “contemplatives” and “activists,” that artificial division does not serve us well. The one Source feeds both contemplation and action, and if we want to live fully in its Life and Power, we need to open to all the directions it calls us. 

Through experiential exercises, small group sharing, large group processing, and worship, this workshop seeks to create a community of deep trust and openness, taking off the armor shielding our hearts and opening us into deeper communion with each other and with the Divine Source. We will spend time exploring how that deeper communion enhances each of our experiences of worship, and helps to open us to greater capacity in discerning individual leadings for action. Topics will include learning how to listen with our whole being, practicing various ways of centering into worship, worship as a transformative crucible, the spiritual empowerment that comes through letting go, and how self-care and the need for spaciousness in our lives impact our capacity to live more consistently at the Root. And we will actively practice ways of listening for, and being accountable to, leadings for our lives and our witness to social concerns.

This workshop will be largely experiential. We will use a lot of small group sharing to help us form a community of trust, openness and depth, and also to practice ways of being deeply present to each other. We will also use practices to try different ways of centering/entering into the Source, and ways of listening for guidance. In addition to small group sharing and large group discussion, we will engage in worship, prayer, some journaling, lectio devina, “light and lively” play, and some storytelling, lecture, and sharing of poetry. This workshop is for Friends anywhere on the continuum between contemplative and activist who are seeking deeper Life in the Spirit and clearer direction in their witness.

Leader Experience

Over the years I have led workshops on deepening the experience of worship (Opening to the Heart of Worship), then expanded that to include vocal ministry (Where the Words Come From), and most recently I have expanded this work further to include our leadings for action (Fire at the Root: Mystical Practice and Our Passion for Justice). This workshop seeks to engage all three areas, starting with a deepened experience of the Root, or Source, and moving from there to explore how discernment in vocal ministry and leadings for action can be better grounded in this core experience of being connected to that taproot of our practice as Friends. I led the first iteration of this workshop as a Pre-Gathering workshop in 2023. And I will be facilitating another version of it at Pendle Hill in October 2023. I have also been working over the last two years with this material in preparation for the second iteration of the School of the Spirit program, Participating in God’s Power: Tending The Root of Our Worship and Witness, due to launch in February 2024. So this work feels like offering my own growing edge-both in my personal seeking and in what I have felt led to offer others.