The Meeting for Business
In meeting for business, Friends are seeking to discover and to implement the will of God. Aware that they meet in the presence of God, Friends try to conduct their business reverently, in the wisdom and peaceable spirit of Jesus. Insofar as a divine-human meeting takes place, there is order, unity, and power.
The Quaker way of conducting business is of central importance. It is the way Friends have found of living and working together. It can create and preserve the sense of fellowship in the meeting, and from there it can spread to other groups and decisions in which individual Friends or meetings have a part. Thus it contributes to the way of peace in the world.
Proceed in the Wisdom of God
Being orderly come together [you are] not to spend time with needless, unnecessary and fruitless discourses, but to proceed in the wisdom of God not in the way of the world, as a worldly assembly of men, by hot contests, by seeking to out speak and overreach one another in discourse, as if it were controversy between party and party of men, or two sides violently striving for dominion not deciding affairs by the greater vote but in the wisdom, love and fellowship of God, in gravity, patience, meekness, in unity and concord, submitting one to another in lowliness of heart, and in the holy Spirit of Truth and righteousness, all things [are] to be carried on; by hearing, and determining every matter coming before you in love, coolness, gentleness and dear unity.
Edward Burrough: Testimony, 1662, in Letters of early Friends, 1841, p. 305.
Sense of Community
Friends found that even the proper functioning of the Quaker business meeting depended upon a strong sense of community, or caring in the group. Decisions were reached without a vote, by "gathering the sense of the meeting." But this would happen only when those taking part respected and cared for one another. It was one of the happier discoveries of the early Friends not only that individuals endeavoring to follow the Light of Christ Within would be led to a unity, but that the caring group could be led as well, and might even be given a higher insight than any individual.
George Selleck: Quakers in Boston 1656-1964, 1976, p. 270.
The Quaker Method of Reaching Decisions
According to the Quaker method, decisions are reached not by voting nor gathering the majority opinion, but by gathering the "sense of the meeting." It was the experience of the early Friends that faithful following of the Light of Christ Within led them into unity with one another, and their experience has been repeated generation after generation to the present time. Their great affirmation that the Light is given in some measure to every one implied that each may also be led, if not in the same path, at least in the same direction. Thus the nearer the members of a group come to this one Light, the nearer they will be to one another.
The possibility and likelihood of such unity in a Friends meeting for business is the basis of the Quaker attempt to gather the sense of the meeting. Friends have faith that there is a unity there to be gathered the Divine will in this instance, as grasped by those present in this group. Not only do Friends feel that by pooling their individual insights they may come close to finding the Divine will, but Friends are also convinced that there is such a thing as corporate guidance, where a group, meeting in the right spirit, may be given a greater insight than any single person. It is this unity of insight that Friends seek and that the clerk hopes to capture in his or her minute. If an individual differs from what appears to be the general sense of the meeting, it may be taken as a sign that the Divine will has not quite been grasped and that the inclusion of the new insight may give a more accurate determination of the Divine will.
After due consideration has been given to all points of view expressed in the meeting, it is the duty of the clerk to weigh carefully the various expressions and to state what he or she believes to be the sense of the meeting, not alone according to numbers but also according to the recognized experience and spiritual insight of the members.
This matter of weighing the individual utterances in arriving at the sense of the meeting is quite fundamental to the Quaker method. Several Friends may quite sincerely speak in one direction, and then one Friend may express an insight which carries weight and conviction in the meeting in a different sense. This one acceptable communication may outweigh in significance several more superficial ones.
George A. Selleck: "Principles of the Quaker business meeting," pp. 7-9.
The Mind of the Meeting
It would be too high a claim to make to say that Friends have perfected the method here indicated, but it may rightly be said that they have put it into practice as few others have done and have found it the most satisfying and creative way of approximating to what is for us the will of God in a given situation: the will of God, that is, in so far as we are then able to apprehend it. The "mind of the meeting" may not always reach that clarity which we could have wished, yet we may be satisfied that, having regard to the frailties of human nature, our partial apprehensions of truth, the varying gifts with which we have been endowed, the fallibilities of our judgement, the decision we have reached is for us, in this situation, right and proper, and should do no final violence to the judgement of any member.
Edgar G. Dunstan: Quakers and the religious quest (Swarthmore lecture), 1956, pp. 58-9.
The Search for Unity
The continuing search for unity is what makes the conduct of Friends business so uniquely coherent and effective. Friends are not trying in the business meetings to find the broadest area of common acceptance in order to form a consensus, but are searching for the Truth and for an understanding of our own relationships to it. That understanding may include quite a range of views, each of which must be valued, if not finally accepted. It is our ability to pass through our particular views to the common center of our Spiritual lives that makes the Friends business method both difficult and rewarding, and ultimately sustaining.
William B. Watson, "Before business begins," 1976, p. 18.
Work in a Humble and Loving Spirit
Friends should endeavor to work with one another in a humble and loving spirit, each giving to others credit for purity of motive, notwithstanding differences of opinion. They are cautioned, however, to exercise mutual forbearance and, having expressed their views, to refrain from pressing them unduly when the judgment of the meeting obviously inclines to some other view.
George A. Selleck, "Principles of the Quaker business method," p. 10.
Speaking to Business
Since our method of transacting business presumes that in a given matter there is a way that is in harmony with God's plan, our search is for that right way, and not simply for a way which is either victory for some faction, or an expedient compromise. In a Meeting that is rightly ordered no one wins or loses, but Truth prevails.
Everyone has the privilege and the duty to lay before the Meeting whatever relevant insight one may possess. Out of this sharing of light may come a greater light which would not have been possible had some refrained from speaking.
Our conviction of God's care for this world and our respect for the dignity of man must carry over into the conduct of our Meetings for Business. We are called to love those present enough lo listen to what they have to say and to speak what is worth their hearing.
Thomas S. Brown, "When Friends attend to business"
Quaker Unity
The crucial difference between the secular methods of human consensus or unanimous consent and the Quaker business method is that, while the former seeks to find a unity according to human wisdom, the latter endeavors to do so according to the leadings of the Spirit of God. In the religious context of worship in a Friends meeting for business, Friends have learned to tell the difference. A strong feeling on the part of even one Friend that the meeting is moving in opposition to the Truth, to the guidance of the Spirit, may properly be sufficient to block action of a meeting, whereas the objection of several on the basis of prudence or of human wisdom may not be.
George A. Selleck, "Principles of the Quaker business meeting," p. 14.
Sense of the Meeting, Not Consensus
I am convinced that there is a profound difference between consensus and the sense of the meeting, for the latter involves faithfulness to the promptings of the Spirit. Most Friends understand that the sense of the meeting does not necessarily mean 100 percent approval. However, it does mean the Friends are in unity. Unity is a far stronger definition than "general agreement" or "solidarity in sentiment and belief." The sense of the meeting means that, while some Friends may not be in full agreement regarding a proposed course of action, they are willing for the meeting to move forward.
This concept was seldom more dramatically exemplified than at an early meeting of the American Friends Service Committee. Portions of several days were spent in discussing a proposed new program. Each time the matter was discussed, a Friend spoke against the involvement of the AFSC. Finally, Rufus Jones, who was presiding, said, "Friend, we have listened to your views and feelings about this matter. Yet it is clearly the sense of the meeting that we approve the program. Are you willing to stand aside in view of the desire of the meeting to move forward?" The response was "yes," and when the meeting concluded, the man came forward and said, "Rufus, it's going to take money to start this program. Here's my check." There was clearly more than 'general agreement' at work in this meeting! The profound difference is that unity was sought in a meeting for worship in which business affairs were considered. In the search for unity, the group was sensitive to the leadings of the Spirit as it sought to discern its movement in the life of the gathered meeting.
Elwood Cronk, "Not consensus," in Friends Journal, April 1, 1982, p. 11.
Truth Which Satisfies Everyone
Quakers have used this method with a large degree of success for three centuries because it has met the religious test, being based on the Light Within producing unity. As the Light is God in His capacity as Creator, Unity in Him creates Unity in the group. When the method has not succeeded, as in the divisions during the nineteenth century, spiritual life was low and Friends too impatient to wait for unity to develop.
At its best, the Quaker method does not result in a compromise. A compromise is not likely to satisfy anyone completely. The objective of the Quaker method is to discover Truth which will satisfy everyone more fully than did any position previously held. Each and all can then say, "That is what I really wanted, but I did not realize it." To discover what we really want as compared to what at first we think we want, we must go below the surface of self-centered desires to the deeper level where the real Self resides. The deepest Self of all is that Self which we share with all others. This is the one Vine of which we all are branches, the Life of God on which our own individual lives are based. To will what God wills is, therefore, to will what we ourselves really want.
Howard H. Brinton: Friends for 300 years, 1952, p. 109.