SWEEP 13 Elaine Emily from Pacific Yearly Meeting on "How do we nurture the Spiritual Gifts of Friends?"

Patricia Johnson

Dear Friends,

We are excited that you will join us this coming Friday for SWEEP 13 with 

Elaine Emily from Pacific Yearly Meeting on 

"How do we nurture the Spiritual Gifts of Friends?"

Elaine will talk about her concern for 

revitalising Eldering, 

the naming and claiming of spiritual gifts, and 

how Friends may nurture spiritual gifts in our meetings. 

There will be time to ask questions and to share in breakout rooms to share with others. Please look at the suggested pre-viewing and pre-reading below. 

Trish Johnson,

Silver Wattle Elders Committee

The Zoom session will start at 10.30am, with a gathering in Silent Worship. It will conclude at 12.00 noon with closing Worship.

Please note the start times:

Eastern States 10.30am

South Australia  10.00am

Western Australia 8.30am

Pacific (US) previous day 5.30pm

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/528059600?pwd=ZitGbGUrczFUWXRBb2lKc1RlTE8yQT09

Meeting ID: 528 059 600

Passcode: 2621

Before the session, you may like to view 

the QuakerSpeak video by Elaine on Spiritual Accompaniment; 

read a list of Eldering and Spiritual Gifts and a quote from "Community Stewardship of our Spiritual Gifts" by Lloyd Lee Wilson.



The Quaker Practice of Traveling with an Elder - QuakerSpeak
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quakerspeak.com

Reading for SWEEP 13:

Lloyd Lee Wilson, “Community Stewardship of our Spiritual Gifts” 

from “Essays on the Quaker Vision of Gospel Order’ (Quaker Press, 1993), pp13,14.

The responsibilities that accompany spiritual giftedness are numerous, and each must be assumed and carried out in order for the full benefit of the gift to be felt in the faith community.

For the individual, the responsibilities of giftedness include naming and accepting the gift and offering it to the faith community in God’s service.

For the faith community, the responsibilities include helping the individual name and develop the gift, and accepting its exercise within the community – agreeing to be ministered to. 

If these responsibilities are shirked on either side, the gift will not grow into its maturity and the faith community will not be nurtured as it needs. Not only the specific individual will be affected, but also other “infant ministers” or persons with other spiritual gifts who, seeing how a more seasoned Friend has fared, will not take the risks of ministry on themselves as they should.

When these responsibilities are acknowledged and carried out, however, the benefits to the faith community are great. The community receives just those gifts that it needs in order to carry out God’s will and therefore knows the joys of growing spiritual maturity and of being in harmony with the divine intent. 

Individuals receive and exercise those gifts that are best suited to their condition, and become more nearly the persons God yearns for them to be.

Let us resolve then, as faith communities to be good stewards of the spiritual gifts that have been bestowed on us, that we might also hear the Master’s Voice, “Well done, good and  faithful servants.”

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ELDERING AND SPIRITUAL GIFTS – an incomplete list

 Love

 Deep acceptance

 Patience and capacity to wait

 Willingness to pray

 Prayerful use of intuition

 Listening

 Concern and feeling for quality of worship

 Holding the meeting in spiritual space

 Vocal ministry

 Groundedness

 Spiritual presence

 Ability to recognise and name gifts in others

 Ability to prompt others to trust and grow their gifts

 Responsive to That of God in the Other

 Teaching/ministry and opening understanding for others

 Open heart

 Open mind

 Focused attention

 Capacity to read body language of self and others

 Trusting in God’s leadings

 Help others to test leadings

 Discernment of the sense of the Meeting

 Love and nurture for the Meeting community

 Provide spiritual hospitality

 Faithfulness

 Willing to speak truth in love, even hard truths

 Know when and how to call others to account

 Know when you/others are outrunning the Guide and need to stop and

listen