Understanding and Trusting Quaker Nominations

Nominations is one of the more mysterious, and in my experience often mistrusted, processes in the world of Quakers. A relatively small number of Friends go into a room, and comes out with a list of who should be fulfilling which role in their Meeting. They pounce on unsuspecting Friends, or possibly just send them an email, letting them know that the committee has discerned their name for some terrifying, or just unexpected, role, demanding to know whether the Friend is willing and able to take on that role.

Well, that's a bit of a caricature, but I'm sure most experienced Friends recognise that image of nominations. It's also likely that a fair proportion of experienced Friends have served on a nominations committee or other nominating group at some point, though not everyone ever does – quite rightly, as not everyone really has the requisite gifts, just like not everyone is suited to being a treasurer or clerk, or elder.

There are all sorts of variations in nominations practice, some of which are necessary, or at least logical and reasonable, adaptations to circumstance. Some are innovations that are in keeping with the essential principles of Quaker nominations, and some are, frankly, compromises of those principles in the name of expediency. In this post I will explore what I consider to be the essential principles of Quaker nominations, both spiritual and practical, and how they can be implemented in such a way that it maximises the trust that Friends not on the nominating committee can have in the process.

My Convincement Experience

The meeting room at Pardshaw, site of some of my early
Quaker experiences. Photo by Andrew Rendle.

There's something that I think can be a really revealing, insight-provoking part of each of our personal experiences to share, and that we don't really share that much – how each of us that considers ourselves a Quaker came to do so. I don't mean simply how we came into contact with Friends, or when and why we started going to Meeting for Worship, or otherwise became involved in Quaker organisations. I don't mean how we got to know some Quakers at a peace camp, or on a political campaign, or at a demonstration, or at Pride.

I'm talking about the experience that made each Quaker realise that this was their spiritual path – the experience of what we have called, from our earliest years, convincement. My spellchecker doesn't like that word, probably because it's not really used much outside of Quaker discourse, and perhaps not that much even among Quakers. Online dictionaries give a perfectly good definition, though – in this sense, it refers to the action or state of being convinced. If you're new to Quaker discussion, it's worth pointing out that this might be similar to what other faiths refer to as conversion. We speak of Friends becoming convinced, rather than being converted, a difference that has a number of reasons feeding into it, and really beyond the scope of this post; perhaps I will return to it in another. If it makes it easier for you to think about, feel free to read “convince” as “convert”, but do be aware that you are missing some shading of meaning when you do so.