Unprogrammed Friends, in the manner of the earliest Friends, do not have hierarchical organization, do not hire clergy to minister and to decide matters, and do not take votes. How, then, can business be conducted, decisions made, community views stated? It is often offered that Friends aspire to "unity" in a deliberative, plainspoken, and sometimes agonizingly slow process. It it true that some issues -- from small Meetinghouse renovations to major and controversial societal issues -- begin in polarization, and decisions are "laid over" (for weeks, months, years) while passions cool, information is shared, new insights are offered, and the loving bonds of community help move an issue forward. Overarching is the commitment of Friends to be led by the Divine, and to discern between such leading and personal will. Love prevails. In the end, unity may not be achieved but one or more members of the community may "stand aside" in the perception of the larger community's leading and their own discerned uncertainty about the roots of their own views. In Meeting for Worship with a Concern for Business, the Clerk asks the entire community (members and attenders) for approval (of an action, a minute, etc.). After a sometimes magical silence, the only response heard from around the room is "Approved!".
An exceptional pamplet on this process was written by Barry Morley :
Beyond Consensus:
Salvaging Sense Of The Meeting
by BARRY MORLEY
"In seeking the sense of the meeting we open ourselves
to being guided to perfect resolution in the Light, to a place where we
sit in unity in the collective inward Presence. Through consensus we decide
it; through sense of the meeting we turn it over, allowing it to be decided.
'Reaching consensus is a secular process,' says a Friend. 'In sense of
the meeting God gets a voice.'"
Morley describes three essential components in discovering
sense of the meeting: release, long focus, and transition to Light, all
of which are nurtured by worship.