{"id":3343,"date":"2022-07-26T18:48:20","date_gmt":"2022-07-26T17:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/?page_id=3343"},"modified":"2022-07-29T21:59:22","modified_gmt":"2022-07-29T20:59:22","slug":"ministry-of-peril","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/august-2022\/ministry-of-peril\/","title":{"rendered":"Ministry of Peril"},"content":{"rendered":"

Keith Wilson<\/strong><\/p>\n

The word \u2018ministry\u2019 occurs 102 times in Quaker Faith & Practice while, for comparison, the word \u2018peace\u2019 occurs 172 times. Given the importance of peace in the Quaker world, this admittedly crude comparison suggests, to me at least, that ministry is a rather important aspect of our Quaker life. So why do I never minister? Before I answer, let me make clear that I\u2019m talking about spoken ministry in Meeting for Worship.<\/p>\n

The reason I don\u2019t minister is possibly related to those 102 occurrences in QF&P. Spoken ministry to me seems to be wrapped around with so much \u2018guidance\u2019 (by which I actually mean rules, but we Quakers don\u2019t have rules do we?) that it feels like it\u2019s booby trapped.<\/p>\n

Ministry must be spontaneous, not prepared; it shouldn\u2019t be a reply to an earlier piece of ministry; no Friend should speak twice in the meeting; items of ministry should not follow each other closely; you shouldn\u2019t minister in the last few minutes of the meeting; you should only minister when divine inspiration strikes and, if you do minister, for heaven\u2019s sake (literally, I suppose) don\u2019t mention the daffodils!
\nI\u2019m sure there are many other \u2018guidelines\u2019, but I hope you catch my drift: spoken ministry is perilous! Perhaps you think I exaggerate and maybe I do, just a little, but in spite of that, in my time at Oxford Meeting, I\u2019ve heard of more Friends being eldered for transgressions related to ministry than for any other reason.<\/p>\n

Maybe you think I\u2019m being faint-hearted and it\u2019s not Quakerly to let fear of a stern eldering stand in the way of delivering inspired ministry. Maybe you\u2019re right \u2013 or maybe I\u2019ve never had the right type of inspiration to make me stand and deliver. Note well my reference to \u2018the right type\u2019 of inspiration because my inspiration is of a different kind. It\u2019s the kind that impels me to keep my mouth shut but start writing! You\u2019re reading an example of the result right now. I don\u2019t know why written ministry \u2013 if you accept that\u2019s what it is \u2013 seems to be my way except, perhaps, that I have been an obligate writer sinceI could first hold a pencil.<\/p>\n

This tale has, I suppose, two morals: the first is that, despite what it says in Advices & Queries, some of us find spoken ministry is not for us. The second is that spoken ministry is not the only form of ministry, so please don\u2019t judge too harshly those of us who choose an alternative option.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Photo provided by Keith Wilson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As a coda, I\u2019ll offer a little warning for anyone who, like me, prefers to produce written rather than spoken ministry. I first saw this cautionary message on a fridge magnet (picture attached). It says, as you\u2019ll see, \u2018verba volant, scripta manent\u2019. For those of you fortunate enough to be so young you didn\u2019t learn Latin at school, an approximate translation is \u2018spoken words fly away, written words endure.\u2019 Written ministry has perils of its own!<\/p>\n

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Forty-Three<\/em> Newsletter \u2022 Number 520 \u2022 August 2022
\n<\/strong>Oxford Friends Meeting
\n43 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LW<\/p>\n

newsletter@oxfordquakers.org<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright 2022, Oxford Quakers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Keith Wilson The word \u2018ministry\u2019 occurs 102 times in Quaker Faith & Practice while, for comparison, the word \u2018peace\u2019 occurs 172 times. Given the importance of peace in the Quaker world, this admittedly crude comparison suggests, to me at least, that ministry is a rather important aspect of our Quaker life. So why do I … Continue reading Ministry of Peril<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"parent":3308,"menu_order":7,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3343","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3343"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3439,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3343\/revisions\/3439"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}