1. PURPOSE

Put simply, it is to carry out the business of that Friends' Meeting. In practise, this means making decisions on a range of issues which may be raised at the meeting.

But the Meeting for Business is carried on in a higher context. It is not just a Meeting for Business, but also a Meeting for Worship. So its ultimate purpose is really not to make decisions but to seek to make decisions in a spirit of worship. This is a very important distinction.

2. FRAMEWORK

(a) In the first place, the group of Friends at the Meeting need to have a shared set of spiritual beliefs. It is not enough to be an ethical Society; we are a Religious Society, believing in a higher purpose beyond ourselves and shared by the group who are meeting. Without this, we will not make the Meeting for Business work as it should.

(b) The Friends at the Meeting also need a shared goal. Early Friends were known as the Friends of Truth - seeking after that ultimate spiritual Truth which lies at the heart of spirituality. To quote from the Epistle of the recent World Gathering of Young Friends - 'We were united not so much in the expression of our faith as in our common desire to be unified by the power of the Spirit amongst us. We were challenged to.come together as Friends of the Truth, seeking together for the common truth behind our language.'

(c) We need a commitment to self-effacement. We are not present at the Meeting to express our point of view or to illustrate our gift for rhetoric. In the same sense, Friends at the meeting are not there to express their own needs and grievances. We are there for a shared purpose - to seek the highest purpose of all - the will of God.

(d) We also need to look beyond the immediate decision to the horizon. Whatever our reason may say, we must ultimately be guided by Faith. Faith lies beyond reason and lifts any decision we make into the broad context which is our ultimate purpose.

(e) We also have to be willing to accept that -

• The time may be wrong for a decision
• Our preconceptions may be wrong
• The consensus may be wrong - we do not seek consensus but the sense of the meeting. This is a vital distinction.

To quote from the draft Christian Experience Review (3.26):

'Our meetings for church affairs, in which we conduct our business, are also meetings for worship based on silence, and they carry the same expectation that God's guidance can be discerned if we are truly listening together to each other, and are not blinkered by preconceived opinions. It is this belief that God's will can be recognised through the discipline of silent waiting which distinguishes our decision making process from the secular idea of consensus. We have a common purpose in seeking God's will through waiting and listening, believing that every activity of life should be subject to divine guidance.'

3. PRACTICALITIES

The Meeting does need a structure. In particular, the clerk needs to be diligent in setting and agreeing an agenda and in making and agreeing the minutes. This article is not intended to cover the broad topic of clerking - suffice to say that the clerk is the servant of the meeting but needs to be open to giving leadership by suggesting ways forward and by setting out the parameters of the subject under discussion.

It is a vital part of Friends' Meetings for Business, that minutes be agreed at the time and before moving on to the next subject. This is not just a matter for Friends - without the decision taken being described in a minute, it is not clear what has been decided. In my time on the Newtown School Committee, there was at least one instance where a minute was left to be agreed at the following meeting. But by the time of the following meeting, there was no agreement on what had been agreed and actions taken between the meetings had compromised the situation even further.

An example outside Friends occurred in a business of which I became chair - the company had got into the practice of circulating minutes of the previous meeting at the start of the next. Invariably, there was a row as to what had been agreed and on what actions should have been taken. A switch to agreeing the minutes during the meeting resulted in less argument and more action.

To repeat, a decision is not a decision until it has been put in words and agreed by the meeting. How often has it happened that the draft minute itself has clarified where the real difficulties lie!

It is also important that Friends are not tested too far in our meetings. The length of time to be devoted both to the particular issue and to the meeting as a whole needs to be set, at least in broad terms. Good decisions are seldom made while Friends itch to get home either to bed or to lunch!

4. SENSE OF THE MEETING

It is helpful to look at some practical examples of decision making in our Society. It does seem that property matters always cause us difficulty - a good example is given in the pamphlet mentioned at the start of this article where a property decision was deferred until the meeting reached a real sense of agreement.

Within Ireland, we have had real difficulty in property disposal - the process by which 6 Eustace Street was sold was not ideal and left Friends feeling unhappy about what had happened, whatever the efficacy of the decision taken.

The recent move of Bloomfield from the centre of Dublin to the suburbs also caused difficulties - however. Friends wisely chose to have a second meeting on a subject which already appeared to have been decided and reached a much truer sense of the meeting in the end. I went to that second meeting with one mind set and came away quite changed - a real example of how a 'well held' meeting can work.

More recently, we have had a series of Yearly Meetings at which the new draft 'Christian Experience' has been discussed. Some years ago, Ireland YM set up a Review Committee to carry out the proposed revision and come forward with a draft. That committee itself needed to search for a method of working, not least because it reflected something of the very diverse theological views within the Yearly Meeting. I took part in a number of the committee meetings and was inspired by the patient way in which the Friends present sought to find Truth - to seek a real sense of common purpose and to listen to what each member was saying.

As the drafts have come to Yearly Meeting, we have had to overcome some difficult problems. To some extent, Yearly Meeting had lost the ability to talk of difficult issues - of those issues which might divide us. Related to this was that some Friends had stopped coming to Yearly Meeting, feeling in some sense that it was not for them. It has required a number of meetings for Friends to begin to trust one another fully and to be able to be totally frank without being totally hurtful.

We are building confidence and trust, not so much in each other as in the light shining through and from each of us.

As we seek a way forward in this matter, Friends have recognised that the ultimate purpose is not to produce a new book of Christian Experience. The real purpose is the spiritual guidance which we gain as we meet; if this leads to a book being published, then that should be as a result of finding it is God's will, as expressed in our meetings.

To quote from the closing minute of our 2004 Yearly Meeting, held in Waterford:

'This Yearly Meeting has been marked by a wonderful openness amongst Friends. In all our meetings and encounters, we have been allowed to share our deepest thoughts in a tender and upholding atmosphere. We began our Yearly Meeting with a Friend telling us that he could feel God's presence amongst us. We have met together in many forms in public worship, in dancing, in candlelit meetings, in discussion groups, in theatre - and throughout the presence of God has surely been felt.'

As we meet for business, we have to continually ask ourselves if we are open to the Light, open to the sense of a meeting held in the Light and in the power of God.