Queries for Ministry and Counsel
Ministry and Counsel should read these queries at regular intervals and from time to time may find it valuable to answer them in writing.
- Ministry
- Does the ministry in your meeting for worship open hearts and minds to the in-dwelling Spirit of God, enabling worshippers to proclaim the Christian message by life and word?
- Does it promote the spiritual growth of the meeting?
- Is there evidence of fresh vision and desire for service in the ministry?
- Does it come forth with full sincerity out of the person's own inward experience and from the leading of the Holy Spirit?
- Pastoral Care
- Do you take an interest in the spiritual and temporal welfare of each individual in your meeting? Do you make yourself easily available to any who seek counsel and advice?
- Is your attitude one of friendliness and love as you listen to others?
- Do you endeavor to encourage in your meeting a sense of responsibility toward attenders, toward your neighborhood, and toward those who have no religious affiliation?
- Oversight
- When members or attenders engage in actions or words which seem inconsistent with the ideals of the Society of Friends, do you feel the responsibility to share with them, in love and humility, your own understanding of Friends' practices and testimonies?
- Do you encourage them to examine their own consciences in the light of the Holy Spirit? Are you willing to listen to them and support them as they pursue that examination?
- Quaker Youth
- Do you exercise a loving and watchful care over the young people of your meeting?
- Do you endeavor to promote their instruction in the essentials of Christianity and the distinctive emphases of the Society of Friends?
- Do you share with others ways you have found helpful in awakening religious experience among your own children?
- Do you seek ways to help parents and children to share together religious experiences in the home and in the meeting for worship?
- By example, encouragement, and counsel, do you help young people to develop personal values which will reject harmful indulgences of body, mind, or spirit?