The Sense of the Meeting

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 of Christ 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 - 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 a 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.