Inside a Conservative Quaker Meeting

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1. Do I prioritize truth over pace in my daily interactions? When I speak, do I wait for clarity to ensure my words are true, or do I rush to fill the silence?
2. Is my outward life a true reflection of my inward condition? Do I have the courage to “wear my baptism” visibly, even when it sets me apart from the culture around me?
3. Is there a relationship in my life that is “dammed up” by pride or grievance? Am I willing to “wash the feet” of my neighbor and to humble myself and initiate reconciliation so that the stream may flow again?

Seth Hinshaw

Well, one thing that I really appreciate about coming to Marlborough is that today is another example of just like when I came in, all of the weight of like troubles at work and things that have happened in the past week just drifted away within minutes. That’s one thing I find very refreshing to be like cleansed for the upcoming week.

Zack Jackson  

I’m Zack Jackson 

Jon Watts  

and I’m Jon Watts

Zack Jackson  

And today we have a very special episode. As you may remember, every so often, we like to take you inside a meeting for worship, to hear the ministry that was given, and to give you a sense of what it’s like to worship in that particular Quaker Meeting.

Jon Watts  

And since Quaker meetings have different styles of worship. These episodes are going to be somewhat varied.

Zack Jackson  

Can you walk me through those branches again? I know there’s programmed and unprogrammed, right?

Jon Watts  

Yeah, you got it. Those are the two kinds of styles of worship you might encounter when you walk into a Quaker meeting. But you know, you mentioned branches, it’s worth mentioning that there can be really different theologies and approaches even within those two categories.

Zack Jackson  

Okay, so like liberal Quakers, they’re mostly unprogrammed, pastoral Quakers, of course, have at least some form of programmed worship. What else is there?

Jon Watts  

Well, there are evangelical Quakers, and that’s a topic for a future episode. But there’s one more branch, and it’s one that we haven’t talked about much yet on this podcast, conservative Quakers.

Zack Jackson  

And just to clarify, when you say conservative, you mean that in the sense of like conserving the Quaker tradition, not necessarily politically conservative, right?

Jon Watts  

You got it. Yeah. So here’s the quick, superficial description of conservative Quakers. They have a couple of Yearly Meetings, Ohio, North Carolina, Iowa, if you see plain dressing Quaker, they are most likely conservative. Conservative Quakers are unprogrammed and Christ centered. So those are blanket statements, and that explanation really doesn’t come anywhere close to doing them justice.

Zack Jackson

What do you mean? 

Jon Watts  

Yeah, well, I don’t, I don’t really know how to describe this feeling. Words kind of fail. Quakers have this term that we use to try to describe someone who is a deep Quaker, you know, deeply wise, deeply grounded, profoundly rooted in the Quaker tradition, and just radiating that sense, we call that person a weighty friend. So I don’t know that doesn’t really even do it justice either. When I was preparing for this episode, I thought back to the most impactful moments of my own, Quaker spiritual formation, and all of those moments involve conservative Quakers in some way or another. You kind of just have to experience it directly.

Zack Jackson  

So that sounds like a field trip.

Jon Watts  

Field trip. Yeah, we actually have a conservative Quaker meeting right in our backyard, less than an hour from Philadelphia.

Zack Jackson  

Okay, well, let’s strap in. But first I wanted to mention, when we were preparing for this episode. You told me that you’ve been setting this up for how long, right?

Jon Watts  

So I first reached out to Ohio yearly meeting in April of 2024

Zack Jackson  

Oh, so almost two years.

Jon Watts  

Well, I know that’s a lot of time to put into one episode, but it was really important to me. I think conservative friends have something really important to teach us and I do have to say, even the slow experience of discernment has been a profound experience for me. I even got to present the idea of this episode at Ohio Yearly Meeting conservative last summer, and it was maybe the most gathered Quaker business meeting I’ve ever been a part of. So I’m deeply appreciative to all the friends in that body who labored with this question and saw the path forward to doing this episode with us.

Zack Jackson  

Well, on that note, maybe we should get it started. Then let’s go.

Zack Jackson  

Before we set out, we wanted to better understand what Ohio Yearly Meeting Conservative is like and what we should expect before visiting Marlborough Friends Meeting. So we called up Seth Hinshaw, who’s a member of the meeting and someone with a deep appreciation for Quaker history.

Seth Hinshaw  

Well, Ohio Friends like to say that we represent the pre division Society of Friends. I guess the reason that people say that sometimes is that Ohio Yearly Meeting has the traditional like structure of worship for Quakers. But. Also the traditional theology. Conservative friends has a little bit of baggage with it because of the way that the word conservative is used politically. Like Ohio, friends are not necessarily politically conservative,

Zack Jackson  

and that desire to conserve the tradition isn’t just theological, it’s practical too.

Seth Hinshaw  

Having said that, I would say 80% of plain dress Quakers are somehow associated with Ohio Yearly Meeting. Some monthly meetings have a bigger percentage, like maybe half or more of their members to us wear plain clothes, but other meetings in Ohio, nobody does. I mean, it’s not an expectation. The expectation, again, it gets back to the idea of what we’re being asked to do in our lives, to express our faith. One of the people from England who came over to visit with us a few times, Tony said he described it as wearing our baptism .

Zack Jackson  

That commitment to integrity, to wearing your faith on your sleeve, to being plain in speech and honest in intention also applies to how they make decisions. We spoke with Chip Thomas, another member of Marlboro, about why it took two years for us to get permission to visit.

Chip Thomas

There is a long standing understanding that one does not record worship. That’s something I’ve known. Unfortunately, there’s a kid inside me that was really excited about this idea of sharing. It was clear that it needed this went out, because the first reach out, I was the first contact. But then it went to a yearly meeting, ministry and oversight, and it eventually went to discernment, to every monthly meeting. In the yearly meeting, they went through a discernment process. It wasn’t just Marlborough, and then it came back to ministry and oversight. And there was some more careful pondering before it was clear that, yes, there were reasons for these traditions. And so they asked that we That’s why Ohio Yearly Meeting asked that no that there no be no recording equipment in in the worship

Zack Jackson  

they’re protecting a specific kind of depth, and that depth is baked into the very foundation of the building itself. Chip told us a story of the meeting’s origin to illustrate that point,

Chip Thomas

This goes back to a time many years ago, there were two Quaker farmers, one of them lived upstream and one downstream, and there was a problem, because the farmer upstream saw fit to dam up the water only for his own use, and that that really left the farmer downstream without what he needed to run his farm, and the Quaker downstream struggled and labored with him, but it didn’t help. He went to his local meeting. They labored with the farm upstream, but to no avail, of course, especially in those days, you would never take anybody to court, let alone another Friend. So that didn’t, that wasn’t an option. And then one day there was a traveling Quaker, a minister, as was common in those days, and he brought the question to him, and he paused. The Minister paused, and finally, what he said was, more is required of some than others. This required some introspection and thought, and then one morning, he realized what he needed to do. He grabbed a bottle of water and a rag or a cloth, and he went upstream to his neighbor’s house, and he knocked on the door, farmer’s wife, where’s Bailey? And he said, Well, he’s upstairs in bed. Well, I have to see him. So she went into the house. He went upstairs. His neighbor was still in bed, and he opened the door. And his neighbor was a little surprised to see this guy. And so what are you doing here? He says, I’ve come to reconcile. I’ve come to wash your feet. And he went over and he washed his neighbor’s feet and then proceeded to hope that they could, they could reconcile their differences. And something shifted. That moment, Bailey escorted Bernard out of the house, and as you can imagine, wasn’t long before he heard the sound of the waters opening up, and the two became very fast friends, and then when it came time to build a local meetinghouse, they both contributed a corner there, each of the corner their property upon which to build the meetinghouse. And as I suppose you might imagine, that meeting was Marlborough Meeting. And so I think that I like to believe that that also reflects the nature of the meeting then and now, that that’s kind of the history. Then the meeting was known to have been established, in a way by this event.

Zack Jackson  

Reconciliation humility and deep preparation. These are the requirements. So when we asked Chip how we should prepare ourselves for Sunday morning, his instructions were simple.

Chip Thomas

There’s a kind of an expectation, slowing ones down, clearing one’s mind, coming prepared to receive and not to give. It’s, it’s conservative friends that I think possibly other friends call worship, call unprogrammed worship, “waiting worship” for the exercises to come in and sit and wait and wait, not, not necessarily to say to wait for the presence of God. There’s many interpret this as saying, God, is there already present, but there’s a waiting to have yourself open up to that presence. And so that means if your mind is racing, if your mind is thinking about other things, thinking about the worries and the cares of the day, then that’s not so helpful. So take a nap, pause, reflect, read something in spirit is spiritual, but certainly then try to empty yourself of those things and then, and then enter this, enter into the silence.

Zack Jackson  

So we paused, we reflected, and then we drove.

Jon Watts  

Chip described conservative friends as conserving the I don’t know if he said tradition. I think of it as the flame. You know, early Quakers were on fire with something. They describe meetings for worship, not as silent, but as super full. So conservative friends have maintained a sense of worship that, I think, is the closest you can get in modern times to how early friends might have felt sitting in those powerful, original worships. It’s kind of hard to describe. I think that’s part of the reason they wrestled so much with whether to record it or not. There is really sacredness to walking into a meeting for worship. That’s that deep. Google map says somewhere around here, I think that’s the building.

Zack Jackson  

All right, we are pulling up right now to a simple red brick meetinghouse, just like Chip described. It is kind of on the corner of multiple farms. All around us actually are either forests or farmlands. It is. It is stunning here. It feels very much like I’m in the early 1800s 

Jon Watts

I think that’s Chip. 

Zack Jackson

I think you’re right. Well, true to our word, we’re going to turn the recording equipment off, prepare our hearts and minds for worship, and we’ll be back after a short break. 

Zack Jackson

For the next hour, we sat on hard wooden benches that were hand hewn from local trees when Thomas Jefferson was still president. I noticed on those benches precise tool markings from the carpenters alongside carved initials from kids who had clumsily left evidence of their presence, probably many decades before any of us were born. It was a good visual reminder of the sort of spiritual residue that covers the walls of a place like this. There’s nothing inherently sacred about a Quaker meetinghouse, but anywhere that’s been set apart for worship for as long as this space has carries with it a spiritual memory, I found it remarkably easy to slide into that stream and center down into a posture of waiting worship. After about an hour, someone stood up and shook their neighbor’s hand, which signaled to the rest of us to do the same after we’d had a chance to check in with folks, Jon sat down with Seth to ask him what was happening in that silence for him.

Jon Watts  

So we came in and sat down, and we were mostly, mostly a silent worship. We had two messages during the worship, but mostly sitting in quiet. What was happening for you in that silence?

Seth Hinshaw

Well, one thing that I really appreciate about coming to Marlborough, and this is probably separate from like affiliations or anything, is that today is another example of just like when I came in, all of the weight of like troubles at work and things that have happened in the past week just drifted away within minutes. That’s one thing I find very refreshing to be like cleansed for the upcoming week.

Jon Watts  

I noticed maybe 40 minutes into worship, you reached for one of the Bibles that’s along the there’s one on every pew here, and opened it up. Do you remember what, what led you to do that, or what you opened it up to?

Seth Hinshaw

Yeah, well, if, if I have a time when I’m here where I don’t feel any guidance to speak, one thing that I do is I open to the scriptures in it, one of the areas where I feel like it’s been the longest since I’ve read that. So what ends up happening, actually, is when I’m here and I don’t feel a leading to speak, that means I’m usually open to parts of the Old Testament, not for it’s not that I have a problem with the Old Testament. I just feel like part of my experience being a Christian is the tighter bond with Jesus and the disciples and people like Jeremiah tend not to speak to me as much. Let’s say some of the prophets, although I value their experience and what they did, they could be rather mean to people.

Zack Jackson  

Seth uses that time to wrestle with difficult texts, but sometimes you need a little help to get into that headspace. Midway through the meeting, Penny Thomas stood up with a well worn book in her hand and began reading. In Ohio Yearly Meeting. It’s recommended that the advices and queries be read regularly during meeting for worship. Penny has also added historical Quaker writings to that list. I caught up with her afterwards in her home and asked her to read the passage that she brought forth in worship.

Penny Thomas

This one happens to be from George Fox. “After thou seest thy thoughts and the temptations, do not think but submit. And then the power comes, stand still in the light and submit to it, and the other will be hushed and gone. And then content comes, when temptations and troubles appear. Sink down into that which is pure and all will be hushed and fly away.”

Zack Jackson  

What about that one stood out to you? Why do you feel like that one was the message for today?

Penny Thomas

I don’t know if it’s any different than when someone shares spoken ministry. Why is that the ministry of the day? Sometimes we don’t know when there’s people in meeting that you don’t know. You don’t know what they need. You know. You don’t know what God’s asking you to do. It may reach someone that needs that day. 

Zack Jackson

So that one in particular, that was that one in particular today, you were just reading through them, and that one felt like, this is the one to share. 

Penny Thomas

Yes

Zack Jackson

I appreciated the word personally today. I felt like with what was happening in my own heart and soul at the moment that you stood up to speak, it definitely resonated with what was welling up within me. 

Penny Thomas

Lots of times I will decide early in meeting what it is I should be reading. I have a tendency to usually wait and read towards the end of meeting. And then sometimes it’s interesting that even though it’s before I hear any vocal ministry, that they dovetail together, because we don’t know that’s going to be happening. And it’s like to the point they’re like, oh, did you pick that out after the ministry, local ministry. I’m like, No, I picked it out before.

Zack Jackson

So it’s almost like there’s someone else with a plan here.

Penny Thomas

Hopefully that’s the point.

Jon Watts  

We’re driving, driving back home after having a meal with the folks from Marlborough Meeting. It was nice to spend a little bit of extended time with them outside of the meetinghouse. I had a moment in the kitchen with Chip while you were recording the advices and queries with Penny. He, you know, he was fussing around and getting the chili ready and getting the bowls out and getting the glasses ready. But he paused all that and just sort of steadied himself and looked at me and said, How does the truth fare with thee? I’ve been asked that before, but it’s always in a pretty intentional way, and it strikes something pretty deep within me to be asked that like now I’m being asked to do some self searching. And this person doesn’t necessarily expect an immediate answer from me. And I did. I just stood there for a while, and I didn’t have an answer, and I felt Chip’s gentle attention on me as he went back to doing some of the chores to prepare for the meal, he would look at me every once in a while, like, are thee ready to respond, and I was clearly still sort of seeking and formulating. 

I mean, this is, this is the first time I’ve met him in person. We’ve had a couple phone conversations, but I feel more fed by that question and the conversation that resulted than you know, many of the conversations and interactions I have with with close friends, you know, and even though Chip had just asked me a really challenging question, I also felt a deep sense of safety, like whatever my response to this is, if it’s true, then he will appreciate it and and this will be a really rewarding conversation. And there’s, there’s something about that with the friends we just spent the morning with this commitment to truth, like I found myself over the course of the morning and over the course of the lunch, prioritizing truth over pace in the conversation that it was less about giving a quick answer and it was more about giving a true answer. 

And there’s something about that that I just have so much longing for in the world and in my relationships, so often it’s about filling the space and the truth, the sort of internal seeking isn’t prioritized, and then the level of connection. And again, I’m going to say simplicity, but that doesn’t hold that doesn’t sort of contain the spiritual weight of the feeling to me. But there’s something about the plainness of let’s put truth first, that is, is freeing.

Zack Jackson  

It’s simple, like a tap root is simple, yeah, not that it’s shallow, but that it’s, it’s deep and simple, right? And we’re so used to shallow and complex, right? 

Jon Watts

Yeah, that’s a great way to put it. 

Zack Jackson

That’s, it’s Mr. Rogers. That’s why

Jon Watts  

Deep and simple, as opposed to shallow and complex?

Zack Jackson  

Shallow and complex, that’s the world we live in. It’s the world of the hot take, the notification and the constant demand for content over truth, but George Fox gave us the antidote in that reading that Penny shared, he didn’t tell us to run faster or think harder. He told us to stand still when we prioritize truth over pace, like Chip in the kitchen or Jon in the car, we’re doing exactly what Fox asked. We are resisting the urge to be shallow. We are choosing to be deep. We are standing still in the light until the noise of the world is hushed and the truth can finally be heard. 

Zack Jackson  

Thank you for listening. We are so grateful that you chose to come alongside us on this journey

We also want to thank our friends Chip Thomas, Seth Hinshaw, and Penny Thomas for their hospitality, their vulnerability, and their willingness to try new things. Thank you as well to Ohio Yearly Meeting for your careful and prayerful discernment. 

If this conversation sparked something in you, don’t let it fade. You can find resources to help you go deeper, including a transcript and queries for reflection, at QuakerPodcast.com. You’ll also find a link to our Discord Server where you can discuss this episode and what it has stirred up in you. 

This episode was edited and produced by me, Zack Jackson. Jon Watts wrote and produced the music.

Thee Quaker Podcast is a labor of love, supported by listeners like you. We are a nonprofit dedicated to giving Quakerism in all its forms a platform in the 21st century. If you have the means, and if this work feeds you, we invite you to help us sustain it by clicking “Support” at QuakerPodcast.com.

May you find the courage to stand still this week. May you prioritize truth over pace. And may you find that when the noise is hushed, you can finally hear the deep and simple Spirit calling to you.

And now, here is your daily Quaker message, as read by Richard Stibbard.

Richard Stibbard  

John Greenleaf Whittier, 1830 

O Spirit of that early day,

So pure and strong and true,

Be with us in the narrow way

Our faithful fathers knew.

Give strength the evil to forsake,

The cross of Truth to bear,

And love and reverent fear to make

Our daily lives a prayer!

Zack Jackson  

To get Quaker wisdom in your inbox every day, go to dailyquaker.com that’s dailyquaker.com.

Hosted, produced, and edited by Zack Jackson.

Original music and sound design by Jon Watts (Listen to more of Jon’s music here.)

This season’s cover art is by Todd Drake

Supported by listeners like you (thank you!!)