Don’t let the silence of Cincinnati Friends’ new member, Michael Rench, who says he is rarely led to speak during worship, fool you. He is a radical to the core: as a draft resister during the Vietnam Conflict, raising a black daughter in conservative Adams County, leading a march against boys who wore their father’s KKK robes to school, jailed for shutting down Wright Patterson Air Force Base in protest, marching in Washington, and keeping a copy of his FBI file.

The corporate silence of Quaker worship fuels Michael’s actions. “Jesus,” Michael said he learned in seminary, “had this reflection-action [sequence] – you pray, then go do, go pray, then do, which is what the Quakers I saw were doing. You sit in silence, then storm the Bastille.”

He was exposed to the social gospel of Jesus during his time at United Theological Seminary in Dayton and emulated the lifestyle of the Quakers he worshiped with as a young adult. “The Quakers at Yellow Springs Meeting were actually living this social gospel stuff on a daily basis in very small, not dramatic ways. I had never run into anyone like this.”

Michael adopted Quakerism full on, living in and helping farm the intentional community, the Vale, outside Yellow Springs. When he moved his family to Adams County with a Quaker physician, the families shared a house.

His sense of the social gospel drove a winding and interesting career path that began with a degree from Wright State University and a master’s of divinity with an emphasis on counterculture ministry, though he was too radical for a Methodist pastoral appointment.

A 50-year Tao practitioner, Michael joined the Tao spiritual nurture group at Cincinnati Friends Meeting, where he met Jeff Arnold. An active member of Trinity Lutheran Church in Mt Healthy. Michael decided “When my wife Susan was out of town, I should just go to meeting. And that was IT. I felt like I’d come home and that I can’t not do this.” 

Michael transferred his membership from Oxford Friends Meeting; he has also been a member of Clearcreek Meeting in Richmond, IN, and Yellow Springs Meeting. He enjoys the vibrancy of our semi-programmed worship, which is new to him.

Michael doesn’t think Quakers promote the clearness-committee process enough. “It’s not advice, but asking questions to allow the person to think more deeply. It’s a way of hearing people talk about what’s bothering them and what’s going on in their life in a safe place, and not in worship.”

“Corporate silence is where Spirit works on us,” Michael said. “I have never been moved to speak. The waiting is enough. People come and find community, but I’m not sure they’re getting the faith tradition and practices.”

Michael’s personal spiritual practice is meditation on the backyard deck he built. “As a kid, a farmer, hiker, and fly fisherman, nature has always been my place to find silence. I need lots of private, quiet time.” While listening, Michael has “experienced the huge, whatever that is in that liminal moment when you connect and have no words. It’s knocked me down.”

For years, he facilitated silent retreats at the Milford Spiritual Center, where he discovered “people need permission to be quiet and not bombarded by noise.”

Working with not-for-profits, the government, and religious organizations, Michael often turned agencies around with “gentle teaching.” He spent a year as peace education secretary for the American Friends Service midwest region and working for the Ohio Department of Disabilities under Gov. Ted Strickland.

“I got to see the underbelly of America and so many marginalized people. At a new agency, I would tell people that I have failed so many times that I can tell you what to not do.”
His work was guided by God and three principles:

– Gentle teaching based on the Bible;

– Servant leadership; and

– Legacy and the organization’s founding virtues.

Temporarily, between gigs, Michael said, “What’s always driven me, and I took from my mentor John Harmon, is it’s not when you’re done with the work, but when the work is done with you. I’ve learned to pay attention and wait til the next thing shows up.” 

Until then you‘ll find him in silent, corporate worship among Friends.