The Meeting for Business

The Quaker way of conducting meetings for business is primarily an expression of the basic Quaker way of living and working, which creates and preserves the sense of fellowship in the Quaker community.

Basically, the method is as follows: A meeting for the transaction of business is conducted in the same expectant waiting for the guidance of the Holy Spirit as the meeting for worship. It is presided over by a clerk, who after a beginning period of worship, brings before the meeting such business as is right to consider on any particular occasion. Time is permitted for careful and deliberate consideration, all members present who feel a concern to speak being heard. When it appears to the clerk that the meeting has reached a decision, he or she states clearly what appears to be the sense of the meeting. If the members then give approval to the clerk's statements a minute is written incorporating it and read before the conclusion of the meeting. No vote is taken. There is no decision made by a majority that overrides the opposition. Action is taken only when the group can proceed in substantial unity. Should the clerk sense times of unproductive argumentation, he or she may call for a quiet waiting or for postponement.

The Quaker conviction that all are able to receive and perceive and understand the guidance of Christ implies both an individual apprehension of the will of God and also an understanding of God's will mediated through the insight of others. Quakerism has always had within it a strong centrifugal force of individualism, but likewise, there has always been a centripetal force of corporate life in tension with it; and from the fruitful interaction of these two have come the decisions of the church. The visions and concerns of individuals prevent the church from being over-traditional and static; the insights of a gathered group prevent it from moving over-hastily in unconsidered enthusiasm.