Meetings for Business

Friends’ decision making happens in a meeting for worship for business. This begins and ends with a period of silent worship. The topic under consideration is introduced and then Friends consider it in the manner of waiting on the guidance of the Holy Spirit. This means allowing everyone who wishes to speak, leaving sizeable pauses between contributions. Usually, each person speaks only once.

The outcome is what Friends describe as “the sense of the meeting”. In the sense of the Meeting, the Spirit gets a voice. It is a product not of will, but of willingness in which we allow ourselves to be led.

Each business meeting has a Clerk, whose role is to introduce the various items for consideration, listen carefully to the contributions that are made and to record the sense of the Meeting – decisions agreed by the Meeting – in the form of Minutes. Each Minute is read out and agreement before moving on to the next item.

The types of decisions may be:

• about spiritual matters – a recent example was on the topic of lifestyles and spirituality
• about tasks we need to do and who will do them (pay the bills, fix the heating, provide the coffee, etc….)
• about events we will organise e.g. meetings, discussion groups, collections for charities