Our Friend Jenny Routledge gave the following presentation at 'Reclaiming Eldership' - the annual meeting of FWCC/EMES (Friends World Committee for Consultation - Europe and Middle East Section) in Bonn earlier this year.

ELDERS AS MIDWIVES OF THE SPIRIT

What qualifies me to stand before you today, where does my authority come from?

My area meeting nominations committee has a habit of issuing challenges to me. The first time this happened, I was jet-lagged and found myself accepting nomination as area meeting clerk. Then, with my three years as clerk completed, I found myself not only as a newly appointed elder but also as the newly appointed clerk of area meeting elders and overseers committee.

But between these two appointments in 2008 I went to Pendle Hill, the Quaker Study Centre in Philadelphia USA, where I was a resident student for one term. For me it was a transformative, life changing, experience. I had been strongly led to Pendle Hill, more strongly than I had been led anywhere before, but as soon as I arrived I was immediately cut adrift, completely outside my comfort zone. I went to the edge of my sanity, and in fury I asked time and time again why I had been led there.

And then after 7 weeks I found why I was there. I found myself led to explore the topic of eldership. I did this by talking to Friends from around the world who came and went within the international community at Pendle Hill. I was also reading and writing. What emerged was a developing sense of a common understanding of eldership regardless of Quaker tradition and which is just as relevant today as it was at the days of early Friends.   I also began to identify areas in which new growth,new shoots of eldership were emerging. As I spoke to people in the USA and since I have returned home I have sensed a hunger bubbling up for a renewal and deepening of the spiritual roots of our meetings and I have become convinced that the key to this is a strengthening of the role and function of elders.

The strength of my compulsion to write on this topic and the speed and flow of what I wrote suggested to my community at Pendle Hill that I might have a 'concern'. Since then I have been through a process of testing and that has been very tough. However, through that process I, my Local Meeting and my Area Meeting have become convinced of the rightness of my concern. Our conclusion has been that the process that I have been through has been genuine, that the leading was consistent with my role as an elder and how others see me – even though I have not seen it in myself. It was a confirmation of the spirit leading me to be more completely who I was called to be – in a deeper way.

Before I move on I want to explain my use of language. When I use the term 'God', Spirit or the Divine I refer to the essence of what we as Quakers may call 'the seed', that of God within each person' or the Light; not some view of a distant God in the sky. For me there is some divine mystery to which we respond and experience individually and corporately through our shared silence. I call this the Spirit. Some of the words that I use have fallen out of favour and may provoke strong feelings but they are used deliberately because they convey a precise meaning and in their original use described something very important in our Quaker way. If I offend Iask you to put aside your response and go to where my words come from.

Midwives of the Spirit

Our theme, and this is not sexist language midwifery is not only the prerogative of women.

Elaine has likened the role of elder to that of a midwife, birthing the ministry from the minister and the meeting. Elders have knowledge and skills to ensure the safe birth of the message, knowing complications which can arise and being watchful. Elder midwives know how to provide the right environment and the right atmosphere and procedures which may be needed. They have accompanied many births, they are the ultimate supporters but they themselves do not give birth, the mother does the work and gives birth just as the ministering Friend and the body of the meeting itself act as a channel for the Spirit.

I shall be talking about what it is like to be an elder, what its essence is, and how I have observed eldership revitalised and renewed in accompaniment, nurture and discipline. I shall talk about how we need to nourish our eldership and what this implies for Quakers today.

What is it like to be an elder?

We posed queries for you before you came and earlier today we shared with each other our understandings and experiences of eldership. Your responses to those queries has enabled us to share that reality. What is it really like?

The contexts in which we are elders are diverse and complex. When I worked educating health care professionals we were very influenced by the work of Donald Schon. He talks of educational practice preparing professionals as coming from the 'technical rational high-ground'. My exploration of eldership might well be criticised for coming from a spiritual high-ground. Schon talks about the reality of professional practice as being in the 'swampy lowlands' a place in which situations are complex, emotional and human. He argues for an education which prepares those professionals to develop their ability to work instinctively and reflectively. The reality of our worshipping communities may be far more recognisable as the swampy lowlands of Quakerism. This is the way that Spirit -led Elders work, instinctively and elfectively in our swampy lowlands.

While the role of elder can be recognised by Quakers across the world, it is in the swampy lowlands that the differences among our Quaker traditions and differences among our cultures are found. It is here that we live and here that our greatest challenges are revealed.

Is there a common understanding of what an elder is?

We saw earlier that there are differences in the way that eldership works in our Meetings. One clear example is the differences in the way which elders are appointed on either side of the Atlantic. Liberal Friends in the US do not appoint elders but Ministry and Oversight committees. In Britain elders are appointed for a three year period.

Our need to put our Quaker traditions into categories like these can be confusing. The more I explored the subject with individual Friends, the more I became aware that practice not only varies between traditions and from yearly meeting to yearly meeting, but also between our Sunday worshipping communities which may be only a short distance apart. We should be careful not talk to up our differences but at the same time be aware that our way is not the only way. What is interesting is that I found that, whatever the background, the yearning which Friends expressed for reclaiming eldership was just as strong, a hunger bubbling up here and now.

I asked 'is there a common understanding of the role of an elder?' and found that there was among the Friends that I interviewed although the ways in which Friends took up their eldership role differed. Most important, and much more difficult to capture in words, is the quality of spirit-led, grace-filled eldership, a deep connectedness with the Divine, at the very root of our community.

Eldership has a bad name. The verb 'to elder', as one of my interviewees reported, has come to mean to criticise or condemn. Some Friends report with great pain occasions on which, many years ago, an elder criticised their verbal ministry in meeting. Some who have left the Society permanently or for a period of some years will, with great bitterness, attribute their departure to the negative words of an elder. Elders appointed for life have been seen as overpowerful. This has caused division particularly when those in positions of leadership have been middle class and wealthy. Visitation by elders to families during the Quietist period was sometimes seen as heavy handed, more concerned with form than devotion.

We need to recognise the strength of eldership and leave the pain behind. The core quality that elders have always brought to our meetings worldwide has been a deep connection with and grounding in the Spirit which underpin the life and worship of our Quaker communities.

Elders may go to a deep place, one which is sometimes beyond and beneath words and they may themselves lose connection with what is being said; but they hold the very root of the worship. They act as a channel for the Spirit to move within both spoken and silent ministry. They provide spiritual leadership.

This place beyond words, at the heart of eldership, paradoxically creates one of the greatest difficulties that we have when we try to talk about this experience and I have only come to recognise it as I have talked to Friends. There are two reasons why I think this happens:

Firstly we apologise often before , during and after we speak of God the Divine, the Spirit, the great mystery, the Inner Light. Such apologies suggests a lack of conviction and certainly do not convey the power and authority of our direct experience within worship, the very core of our Quakerism. We may indeed be silent when we should speak. Maybe silence comes too easily to us and when we choose not to speak that which is at the heart of our beings we prevent the rich exploration that might result from sharing. For Quakers silence is a natural medium but we need to be aware of its dangers.

Secondly we find it difficult to express our spiritual experience in language which is adequate and this limits both the experience itself, because we have become used to using language to make sense of the world, and also our ability to communicate our experience to others. In our silence we lose an opportunity for growing together. We are silent individuals rather than members of a seeking community.

What is new and exciting?

We have heard in our workshop earlier of many ways in which eldership is being practised. New shoots are emerging. Eldership is the responsibility of us all, elders have a responsibility to ensure that it is done and to act as role models of spiritual leadership. Just as there is a need to revisit practice it is also important to learn from the quiet spirit-led work which continues day in and day out in our meetings. Discovering what is happening is an important part of my concern and it has been a privilege to learn of your experience. What works within one meeting, one tradition or one country may not work for others. Nurturing and empowering eldership is central to the process. Reclaiming and revitalising eldership is, I'm convinced, at the heart of strengthening the spiritual roots in our meeting and in ourselves.

One of the strengths of Quakerism is that our witness evolves through our direct experience of the Spirit and in response to the challenges that we face in our lives and in the world.

I would like to take the three thread of eldership which are part of our theme: accompaniment, discipline and nurture. I have found within each examples of recent new shoots , where practice which has fallen into disuse, has been reclaimed and expressed in new and exciting ways.

Accompaniment

Just as elders were named and appointed early in the history of the Society so were ministers. Ministers were recognised as having particular gifts, being channels through which the spirit could speak to the condition of an individual or community. The historical pattern was that travelling ministers were accompanied by an elder. The practice promoted the importance of the message above that of the minister. Ministry should be very much a communal experience a team effort, dependent not only on the minister but also on the elder to uphold, nurture and support the minister's preparation and delivery, and to support the gathering and centring of the meeting. Ministry is also dependent on the spiritual health of the community itself, and on the readiness of Friends to come with hearts and minds prepared listening for the Spirit both in spoken ministry and in the ministry of silence.

Recently the practice of an elder accompanying a travelling minister has resurfaced. Jan Hoffman's travelling ministry in the States has led to a resurgence of accompanying elders, bringing a mutual growing in the Spirit for the minister and the elder, and growth in the power of the resulting ministry. Those who travel in this way speak of a deeply spiritual friendship which results from 'knowing each other in that which is eternal.'

A minister may become angry or stuck in preparation for ministry and, without an elder's support, cannot go to that elusive place from which ministry may flow. In the view of one travelling elder, whom I interviewed, the more the role is named and explained, the more it becomes developed and strengthened. An elder will also know when the ministry is lost. On one occasion an elder accompanied a Friend on a three-day train journey and, although the Friend worked unceasingly on his address, he eventually told his elder that he had many words but nothing to say. The Friend's predicament continued until five minutes before his ministry was due to begin when, in worship with the clerk and the elder, the clerk ministered and the message became clear. The Friend then delivered the message powerfully.

For those experiencing accompanying eldership as minister, elder or as a member of the meeting, the presence of the elder makes a significant difference. Those who ministered spoke of their sense of being upheld and of being able to go deeper in their ministry coming closer to their true calling. Those who accompany them also experience a rich and rewarding journey in which they learn much. One Friend expressed what she had gained:

'My conclusion to the group was that I felt that upholding is really about trust - trusting the process, trusting the Spirit, trusting each other and trusting ourselves.'

Members of meetings for learning at which accompanying elders were present have spoken of being taken to a different level by their presence. An accompanying elder often transforms what might be described as a secular presentation or workshop into true ministry. Helen Gould's account of being accompanied by an elder vividly illustrates her ministry in delivering the Backhouse Lecture:

I found that I was able to pray that I would speak all and only what I was given to speak, and that the worshiperslisteners would receive benefit. From that moment I was not actually aware of myself. I'm not sure how to put this at that point I was, I believe, simply a channel for God's love.

Discipline

A word with its roots in discipleship. I hope we can remember that. I found news shoots in two different areas of the life of Friends:

Accountability

Quakers do not often speak today of accountability within our meetings. This was, howeververy much a part of Friends' culture until the twentieth century. Yet is there still a need for , accountability? Sandra Cronk argues that accountability goes to the root of gospel order: she says 'Historically mutual accountability provided an internal dynamic to keep gospel order strong within the Quaker community'

Accountability in many faith traditions relies on a rule or practice to define commitment to living in the spirit. These rules are neither creeds nor doctrines but, focussing on behaviour they are expressions of what a life of faith means in a particular community.

A group of Friends in Britain are today beginning to use their own 'Rules to Live By' following a course run by Alex Wildwood and Ben Pink Dandelion at Woodbrooke in 2006. Through mutual support they identify how they wish to lead faithful lives, and write and share their own 'rules'. They provide for each other a structure for mutual accountability in living with spiritual authenticity. The focus is on practical, even measurable, behaviour and can include for example: a commitment to daily spiritual practices, or a plan for annual retreat, or ethical ways to earn and spend their money, or a responsible environmental footprint, or action for social witness. Elders can encourage Friends to develop their own Rules to Live By for authentic living and to provide for each other mutual support and accountability. This is not only a matter of outward behaviour but also of mutual nurture and trust.

Spoken Ministry

We can all think of occasions when the ministry of an individual has been self serving rather than spirit-led. Whenever this happens the community has a responsibility to bring the Friend back to the authentic voice of the Spirit. This responsibility is rightly exercised by elders, however, it is in this aspect of eldershipthat difficulties sometimes emerge. Friends can be reluctant to challenge those whose verbal ministry appears inappropriate, even if the absence of such discipline is an example of benign neglect. As Ron Selleck has written, 'Both an unspiritual rigor and unspiritual laxity are destructive of life. If many were lost then to rigor, many more are lost today to lukewarmness, indifference and apathy masquerading as tolerance and long suffering' (Selleck 1983).

When I spoke to Friends however, I did not hear about inappropriate eldering, only examples of how loving care brought them to grow in their ministry. I heard example after example which illustrated guidance offered with love, tenderness, compassion and sensitivity, all wonderful examples of Spirit-led eldership. They showed how Friends can be moved to another place, to a new understanding, by the gentle nudges of elders. They were part of a loving and nurturing ministry. It is difficult to choose examples.I offer two short accounts, there are other beautiful but longer examples. The names are fictitious:

An ex clergyman spoke in meeting for the first time when he heard ministry form a Friend, who in his opinion was wrong in his interpretation of the Bible, and he rose and spoke to put the meeting right. Afterwards a Friend spoke to him lovingly and directly telling him this was not the way of Friends. The elder's approach was so kind that no offence was caused, and it was followed with an invitation to the elder's home.

Another meeting was very disturbed by an elderly Friend, John, who took notes during ministry and then read them aloud to the meeting. For some time the meeting took no action. Eventually Mary stood silently until John stopped speaking and resumed his seat. Speaking to John afterwards, Mary asked lovingly why he made notes and read them aloud. John replied that this was his way of dealing with his failing memory. When Mary told him that his presence in meeting was greatly valued by Friends, he ceased the practice and found peace. It appeared that his behaviour had in part also been an attempt to contribute to and be acknowledged by his own meeting.

I have often heard elders speak of great distress caused by inappropriate ministry, in its timing, its length, in the source of inspiration and the motivation of the speaker, in insensitivity or over-sensitivity to the perceptions of others. At the same time they feel restrained trying not to cause offence to the person who ministered. Sometimes in the end the elder is driven in anger and frustration to challenge the Friend and by doing so do indeed cause great offence. But elders have a responsibility to the spiritual well-being of the meeting. Courageous, loving and caring enquiry as to where the ministry comes from may provide an opportunity for spiritual growth for all concerned. Risk taking can have surprising results. Elders have a role not only in challenging inappropriate ministry but also in encouraging discussion of what the Spirit has lead Friends to say. It is a healthy spiritual community which talks over coffee about the ministry it has received.

There is a need for courage and approaches with a tender heart. Elders need to be empowered to carry out this vital contribution to our worship.

Nurture

Perhaps the most visible role of elders is responsibility for meeting for worship and for the worshipping community. Certainly the upholding of meeting for worship by attention to practical arrangements conducive to a gathered meeting is part of this function. Holding the meeting in prayer and supporting those who minister are other parts of this role. Yet there is also a less visible role, that of practising true listening to the Spirit of providing spiritual nurture for individuals within our meetings.

A worshiping community needs to grow and flourish in the Spirit. By learning together we grow. Elders can identify such needs and facilitate meetings for learning, either by conducting them themselves or by arranging ministry from outside. They can ensure that Friends grow together by sharing meals and witness. For example the Quaker Quest initiative in Britain has had many benefits, not only by bringing people to Friends but also by facilitating dialogues in meetings about beliefs and spiritual journeys. These have strengthened the spiritual life of meetings, bringing inreach as well as outreach.

Discerning and recognising the gifts of ministry within a Friend is also a traditional role for elders, yet this nurturing role has wider implications. Elders can support the discernment of nominations committees by prayerfully upholding their work. If they share their insights with the Friends in whom they identify gifts and leadings they can encourage confidence and willingness to serve. The work of nominations committees is arguably the most important in any meeting, for it brings forward the names of Friends to nurture our spiritual life from which our witness and testimonies spring. Roy Stephenson, in his travelling ministry stresses the importance of prayerful discernment, of worshipful meetings and of the importance of knowing each other in that which is eternal as well as temporal. The work of nominations committees has elements of oversight and eldership because Friends taking up service often need training and guidance as well as support.

In the USA there has been a shift in a few meetings to lay down nominating committees, replacing them with committees for gifts and leadings. This shift in emphasis highlights an important task for elders.

The emphasis on individual spiritual experience and a reluctance to offend within our meetings has resulted in a reticence to share our spiritual paths. This in turn has meant that within the community we have sometimes lost the informal learning from each other wherever we may be in our spiritual journeys.

In some communities the use of a spiritual director, with its origins in other faiths and denominations,has been borrowed and modified for use among Friends although they are more likely to be know as spiritual nurturers or spiritual guides.

I found examples of ways in which elders had facilitated or formalised such support for each other: mentoring in which a more experienced Friend might for instance support and guide someone just taken into membership, or spiritual friendship where two or more Friends perform this service for each other. Spiritual nurture is an important part of eldership; it may take many forms corporately and individually. For some this may be extended into training to become a spiritual director. Some Friends find a spiritual nurturer thus trained in spiritual direction, who may or may not be a Friend, to be a vital part of their spiritual life.

The elder-nurturer role is embodied in the words of Douglas Steere. He powerfully describes true listening: 'To listen another soul into a condition of disclosure and discovery may be almost the greatest service that any human being can perform for another' (Steere 1955).

Supporting Elders

Edward Hoare reminds us, 'Those who are called to the office of elder need help to prepare for the tasks which lie ahead. Perhaps the first task of the elder is to nurture each other for how otherwise can they give to the meeting?'(Hoare 1995).

My interviewees talked about the importance of being prepared in mind, body and spirit. We need to do our homework:

•  We need to get rest and play as well as undertake the work that is required of us. It is our responsibility to ensure that we are as physically fit as possible to undertake our calling;

•  We need to do our intellectual homework, ensuring that we are well versed in the history and theology of the Quaker way and familiar with initiatives which require our witness in the world;

•  We need to ensure that we are psychologically prepared, and that we have done the work necessary to ensure that we do not bring our own distress to our interactions with others, so that we understand our own emotional landscape sufficiently to know what is ours and what belongs to another; and

•  We need above all to be spiritually nourished. Being an elder is in itself a rich experience, and to hear of the intimate spiritual experiences of others is a privilege and a joy. The feedback that we receive from our communities is another rich source of support. We spend time listening and upholding the spirit within our worship, and this too nourishes us. However, elders also need elders , spiritual nurture. This can be provided through a peer group process. In listening to each other we need to pay attention to the movement of the spirit within ourselves. This is our primary need if we are to do our job effectively, and we are irresponsible if we do not to care for ourselves in this way.

Conclusion

My exploration of the role of eldership has been a rich and enlightening journey. It is in itself a form of ministry. I have witnessed a recognition of the elder's role which is rooted in the beginnings of the Religious Society of Friends nd which transcends our organisational frameworks. I also detect a yearning in our worshipping communities for a strengthening of the role and function of elders. New shoots are appearing in eldership practice. Ministry continues within the Society, taking many forms, and although ministers may be identified in different ways they share a need for the rooted support of strong elders. Accountability was once an important part of our community life, and we need to capture the yearnings for personal accountability that we find today and to find new ways of achieving them. We need to be courageous in speaking truth to each other in the spirit and in love, for otherwise there is a danger that benign neglect will impede the flowering of our witness. We need to ensure that our meeting communities are places in which the spirit can flourish among us, and in which we learn to know and support each other in seeking that which is eternal. These are rightly the realms of eldership.

Certainly in Britain and probably in other parts of the world we face considerable challenges. We need to come from a position of strength to reclaim the power of our worshipping community, to keep it grounded in God's guidance and interpret it for today's challenges. This is our witness in the world. We do indeed stand at a crossroads. We must find a confident voice to express clearly our life in the Spirit. Our membership is no longer dominated by birthright Friends. Our culture and practice are no longer passed down through our genes or within family traditions. Our numbers are now dominated instead by convinced Friends.

To revitalise the Society of Friends, we need to attract more people who are seeking the depth and richness of a life lived in the Spirit that is uniquely Quaker. We must therefore nurture and strengthen the heart of our faith. Eldership can do this for us. If we revitalise eldership we revitalise the Society. Strong eldership is the root of our life in the Spirit and in the world. We should not be afraid of its rigour. We need to name our elders, and to name what they do. We need to find ways of nurturing and strengthening our elders' roles in our meetings. Only by doing this can we strengthen our ministry, return to discipline and accountability, and nurture our meetings and the individuals within them. There is a hunger bubbling up, a sense of excitement and a willingness to be radical. We can seize the moment in the words of George Fox to:

'be patterns, be examples to all places islands, nations wherever you come, that your carriage and life may preach among all sorts of people, and to them: then you will walk cheerfully over the world answering that of God in everyone.'

Cronk, S. (1991) Gospel Order: A Quaker Understanding of Faithful Church Community (Wallingford Pennsylvania: Pendle Hill Pamphlet 297)

Gould, H. (2009) 'Giving the Backhouse Lecture as teaching ministry' The Australian Friend,

Hoare, E. (1995) Deepening the Spritual Life of a Meeting (Philadelphia, Friends General Conference)

Selleck,R (1983) 'Quaker Elder', Quaker Life, January – February, 1983 p13

Schon, D. (1987) Educating the Reflective Practitioner, (San Francisco: Jossey Bass)

Steere, D.(1955) On Listening to One Another (New York, Harper and Brothers)