Quakers, especially unprogrammed meetings, like to talk about how we strive to keep things simple, so we can get on with building a spiritual community and listening to what God has to say to us.
But we’re also very good at creating structure, process, and things to do.
It’s right and valuable that Quaker processes are built around wide participation. But I can’t help feeling that sometimes we have so much process going on that we end up reducing the space from which inspiration can grow.
So where does all the process come from?
I think the ‘DIY’ nature of our faith leads us to want to foster involvement and participation- we want people to find roles for themselves.
We also want to take great care to ensure ideas are tested thoroughly, so tend to appoint committees here, send minutes there, etc etc.
Unprogrammed and liberal Friends can end up using process as a kind of community ‘glue’- they replace orthodoxy with orthopraxis (an idea suggested by Ben Pink Dandelion)
Do we need all the process all the time?
things that might have been otherwise 
A whole lot of the process I’ve seen is trying to insulate ourselves from vulnerable conversations with one another and direct instruction from the Holy Spirit. It would be nice to see Friends released from some of the committee work and spend the time going out into the world again.
You said it Martin. Quaker process is there for channelling insights, but it often ends up cushioning us from the real impact of what we’re called to do. To be clear: I’m not saying Quaker process is wrong or even misguided, just that it can be quite energy-intensive.
Sorry to double-post and maybe it’s unrelated but I was just doing my just-before-bed bathtub One Year Bible reading and thought of this post when I read Luke 6:46: “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord’–and never do what I tell you? Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and acts on them–I will show you what he is like. He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundations on rock. When the river was in flood, it burst upon that house, but could not shift it, because it had been soundly built. But he who hears and does not act is like a man who built his house on the soil without foundations. As soon as the river burst upon it, the house collapsed, and fell with a great crash.”
This weekend my yearly meeting is going to debate yet another reorganization plan. I’ve lost track of how many times they’ve done this in the past twenty years. It feels like pushing that house across the sand a bit more and hoping it holds up a little longer. It seems all we have to do is listen and –hear the words, act on them.
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