Message from the Pastoral Care and Eldership Team (PaCET) for Sunday Meeting 8th December 2024

Dear Friends,

Quakers have a structure very different from almost all other organisations which exist as hierarchies (pyramids) where most of the power rests with a few people at the top. We have a nearly flat structure; some people are given particular responsibilities for a fixed period of time and those lapse when they have completed their term. Our most important meeting is Yearly Meeting held in London and every member has the right to attend and others may take part on request. Everyone there has an equal right to speak. (No one knows what would happen if all 12,000 wanted to attend at the same time; at present there are usually about 2,000).

While we are centered on some basic principles (Simplicity, Truth, Equality and Peace) we have no creed. Other religious bodies each have documents presented as the truth which all members are expected to believe. We treasure insights from the past where they are still valid and we  are open to new light as it comes to us.

Our meeting is blessed with some people who come just because of our friendliness and our ethics, some seeking something spiritual, some who have clearly understood religious beliefs and some who are now uncomfortable with beliefs that they once held. All are welcome. We have our own etiquette, when to speak and when to keep silent, but all ministry, spoken or written, when it comes from the heart is valued. All deserves our respect and our attention, but we are not obliged to agree with everything, nor to respond to it. Meeting is not a debate. Some religious groups regard any divergence from the official views as heresy but Quakers value diversity. On occasions ministry may seem irritating or irrelevant to some, but is appreciated by others. In matters of belief we are under a duty to speak for ourselves, as long as we do not present our own experiences as the whole of Quaker orthodoxy, nor to suggest that others should think as we do.

New attenders should beware of taking the experience of a few meetings as representative of the whole, or the views of some Friends as the views of the whole group. In an inclusive and tolerant group there can be a temptation to say only the things which would be acceptable to everyone. That leads to the kind of self-censorship which is deadening. One Friend said, “I used to say that the theists would say ‘that of good in everyone’, while those less sure of God would nevertheless say ‘that of God in everyone’ so as to be sure that they were mutually inclusive. Far better we just use our own language. We are better practised in it and everyone knows where we are coming from. It is more honest.”

David Hitchin

on behalf of the Pastoral Care and Eldership Team (David Hitchin, Chris Lawson, Tim Pitt-Payne, Caroline Pybus, Theresa Samms and Nancy Wall)