For the past year I have been rotating among the various Quaker meetings in and around Portland.
I have been seeking to identify what best feeds my soul and to discover where I might best be led to serve at this time.
A question that has been with me a long time has been, what would my idea of an ideal meeting for worship be like?
Unprogrammed meetings often are very rich, but other times for me it seems as though there is something missing.
On the other hand I love the music and the discussions of queries or messages in programmed meetings, but the five or ten minutes allotted for “open worship” do not provide anywhere near the time required for the deep communion of a gathered meeting.
I imagine a meeting for worship of two hours, a programmed hour and an unprogrammed hour. I also would like to experience the meeting described by Brent Bill in his Modest Proposal: … *“instead of fitting holy silence in, use it as the basis for worship. Then trust God to lead the choir to stand and share musically. And move the pastor to give a prepared sermon…”. That, I believe, would feed my soul.
*A Modest Proposal p.12
