Philadelphia Yearly Meeting

of the Religious Society of Friends

Ministry & Care

Submit Your Spiritual Self-Assessment by May

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Dear Friends,

Submit your state of the meeting report here!

Greetings from Quaker Life Council of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.  How does the Truth prosper with your meetings? If you are ready to let your spirit shine out, we are ready to receive your spiritual self-assessments! Many thanks to those who have already submitted their report for this year! Anything we receive before May, we will be sure to include in our summary report for our yearly meeting community.

To submit a report, click on the above link or forward your report to zdutton@pym.org via email. You can also mail hard copies of your report to:

Quaker Life Council
c/o Zachary T Dutton
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting
1515 Cherry St
Philadelphia, PA 19102

Last year, we began the transformed practice across our monthly meetings of performing spiritual self-assessments and sharing them with the Yearly Meeting at annual sessions.   Quaker Life Council compiled a summary of these reports that was shared during the summer, and PYM staff has now posted all of these state of the meeting reports on the PYM website for all meetings to see.  (Available at https://www.pym.org/category/state-of-the-meeting-report/, December 15, 2018).  Read them!  Rejoice in our full PYM Quaker community.  You may find help for an issue that your meeting is facing in the way another meeting has handled a situation.  You may find inspiration.  You may find a different way that your meeting would like to do the Spiritual self-assessment this year after reading these.

Above all, we hope that you again focus on the Spirit in the process of assessing the Spirit.  We encourage you to have the process be rich and energizing, rather than depleting.  I have included the Faith and Practice guidelines which outlines a process you may choose to undertake.  However, do not hesitate to be creative in your process and in your reports.  If your meeting needs more worship, do your assessment in worship.  If you need to know your hard numbers or want to write an intellectually based historical report, go for it.  If your meeting sews in the Spirit, do your spiritual assessment in a quilt.  Write songs or stories together if you would like, or play games and share back the rules of how to play that makes your community shine.  We can receive videos, pictures, written reports, whatever you would like to share that captures your meeting’s Spirit.  Make it a good and rewarding experience for your meeting, because this is done for you and for the Spirit of our whole PYM.

We, the Friends in Quaker Life Council extend our love to you and your meetings. We want our Spirits to shine together. Thank you for holding us in the light as we do our work, we are doing the same for you.  Please know that we are here to help nurture your Spiritual growth. Call on us if you think we might be able to help.  We are so glad that your meeting is a part of PYM and we are thankful to be serving you.

Here is the Faith and Practice Section on Conducting Spiritual Self-Assessments:

When early Friends met one another, they would ask “How does the Truth prosper with thee?” rather than asking “How are you?” They wanted to know about each other’s spiritual condition and relationship with the Divine.

Undertaking a prayerful assessment of the Friends meeting’s spiritual condition and needs and issuing a state-of-the-meeting report on a regular basis can provide a deep and meaningful opportunity that draws the community together. The meeting’s self-examination process may involve several steps. The meeting could begin with queries that address its spiritual strengths and weaknesses and also efforts to foster growth in the spiritual life of each member and of the meeting as a whole. The meeting may use the queries suggested below; it may use selections from the general queries above; it may decide to use queries from some other source; or it may formulate its own queries. The meeting may charge one of its standing committees, such as worship and ministry, or an ad-hoc group to prepare a response to the chosen queries or to oversee a process of gathering information more widely in the meeting from which to prepare a response. In the latter case, the committee may hold discussions with committee clerks, the meeting’s young Friends, or new attenders, for example; or it could conduct worship sharing by small groups within the meeting or by the meeting as a whole. The committee will prepare a draft report in a format that is most helpful to the meeting. The report is then submitted to the meeting for discussion and approval.

After approval by the monthly meeting, the meeting may agree to share its spiritual self-assessment with other meetings.

Suggested Queries for a Spiritual Self-assessment of the Meeting:
·      What practices and strategies are employed by our meeting to help members and attenders of all ages prepare for worship—whether in meeting for worship or in meeting for business?
·      What are the challenges to and opportunities for enhancing the worship of our meeting, and what are we doing to address these?
·      What opportunities are provided to address topics important to deepening both personal spiritual journeys of members and the spiritual life of the meeting?
·      What is most needed to strengthen the communal witness of the meeting to the local community and beyond?
·      To what priorities does God call our meeting? How do our annual budget, our meeting’s standing committees and other aspects of the meeting’s life reflect those priorities?

Love,
Quaker Life Council (QLC)

Kate Bregman, Central Philadelphia Meeting (Philadelphia QM)
Amy Taylor Brooks, QLC Clerk, Birmingham Meeting (Concord QM)
Julia Carrigan, Mickelton Meeting (Salem QM)
Melanie Douty-Snipes, Fallsington Meeting (Bucks QM)
Gray Goodman, QLC Recording Clerk, Providence Meeting (Chester QM)
Bryn Hammarstrom, Wellsboro Meeting (Upper Susquehanna QM)
Ayesha Imani, Germantown Meeting (Philadelphia QM)
Cathleen Marion, Downingtown Meeting (Caln QM)
George Rubin, Medford Meeting (Haddonfield QM)
Anthony Stover, Germantown Meeting (Philadelphia QM)

Updating Our Threads

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The Quaker Life Council has recently approved an updated set of Threads, which are ways of organizing the work and witness that all of the communities in PYM face on a regular basis. The new list is:

  • Peace & Social Justice
  • Ministry & Care
  • Religious Education
  • Outreach & Communications
  • Governance & Stewardship

[Read more…] about Updating Our Threads

Crossing the Threshold: Preparing to Welcome Families

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How do meeting communities prepare and engage in active invitation to families and children?

Three sets of needs. When a family walks through the door of a meeting, there are three sets of needs we should be prepared to support: the spiritual formation of their children, the spiritual journey of the adults as individual seekers drawn to Quakerism, and the family unit as they search for a spiritual community for their family to grow and contribute in. Welcoming a new family is the work of the whole meeting — youth religious education, worship and ministry, care of community, etc. Pastoral care for children begins with pastoral care for their parents or primary caregivers, and this care is best served at an intersection of multiple committees and ministries. Along with welcome and inclusion, child safety (which is really community safety) is another place for the meeting community to work together to address resources and practices. When my meeting wrote our child safety policy, the ad hoc committee included members of children’s religious education, worship and ministry, and the meeting clerk, who worked together to bring forward a policy for the whole meeting to approve as a body. There is a powerful message in the shared nature of that work.

Listen. When we welcome a family at the meetinghouse threshold, we need to be prepared to reach out and communicate about what they will find there. We also need to be ready to listen. What is a family looking for in a faith community? What do they want you to know about their children, their hopes and needs? After we listen, are we willing to create flexible structure and routines in programs for families to participate? How can we make space for Friends with a variety of gifts to participate in our spiritual community?

I had a humbling experience that lifted up the need to listen, as well as to share about Quakerism and our meeting: In a year when we had many new attenders, we decided to have a shared lunch to invite them more fully into the life and work of the meeting. We prepared a handout about committees, there was an agenda and program (and childcare and pizza for children!). The program opened with the simple request to go around the room and share what had brought each of us to our meeting? Where were we on our spiritual journey? I thought we would do introductions and then get to the “real work” of sharing about our committees and how newcomers could participate. Ninety minutes or so later, we had gotten around the circle of people present. We didn’t get to anything else we had planned. The real work of that time together was sharing, listening, and gathering as a spiritual community. The time for finding a place for people to serve would happen, but we needed to know each other better, first. Integrating families and other newcomers into the spiritual life of the meeting doesn’t need a committee. It’s just about placing primacy on the spiritual experience of worship, listening deeply to one another, and walking with one another in the travails and celebrations of life. People want to share their stories as they come to walk with us. Are we listening?

The unspoken messages of spaces. When my children were very young, I spent most of hospitality hovering over them on antique horsehair furniture where they balanced with glasses of juice and china plates of cookies. I rarely had an adult conversation of any depth, during a time when wonderful connection can happen — and when I needed it. It finally occurred to me to ask if we could add to the social room a small table and chairs for children. The result was transformative! People who are parents can get their children set up there, and then spend coffee hour talking to other adults. The other happy outcome? Children in fellowship with their peers, knowing one another in community outside of a program or worship. Spaces give unspoken, immediate clues to a new family about how prepared the meeting is to welcome them: is there a place to change a diaper? a booster seat or highchair? a small table and chairs in a fellowship space? Does the worship space have a basket of books, coloring, and other quiet things to support children be settled — and included — in worship? Does the greeter have information about child care and youth religious education programs, to hand to visitors along with announcements or information about the meeting? None of these things need to be fancy, but they send a powerful message of inclusion.

Friends may be interested in receiving:

  • “The Tote Bag” PYM e-newsletter for Religious Education and Family resources.
  • “Quaker Meeting and Me” from the Quaker Religious Education Collaborative. This little book in English and Spanish is wonderful to hand to a visitor or newcomer, or as a gift to young children in the meeting.

To learn more about these resources, or plan a conversation about outreach and support for families in your meeting, contact Melinda Wenner Bradley, the Youth Engagement Coordinator, at mwennerbradley@pym.org.

Westfield MM Uses Membership Development Grant for Outreach and Quaker Community Building

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Westfield Meeting received a Membership Development Grant for the purchase of an 8X8 foot pop-up tent, 5-foot-long table, table weights, a tablecloth printed with the “SPICES”, and literature from PYM. The purpose was to attend public events and increase awareness of Quakerism and Westfield Meeting as well as other Meetings; develop cooperative outreach with other Meetings and organizations; and focus members of Westfield Meeting on the need for vigorous outreach. We were to attend six events during the first year of the grant, and keep a tally of direct encounters with members of the public.

[Read more…] about Westfield MM Uses Membership Development Grant for Outreach and Quaker Community Building

Between the Kola Forest and the Salty Sea: Willits Book Trust supports Stories to Heal Liberia

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In late October 2018, members of the Willits Book Trust of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Walton Burwell of Germantown Monthly Meeting and Lisa Stewart Garrison of Greenwich Monthly Meeting, visited with Dr. Carl Patrick Burrowes to prepare 250 copies of his book Between the Forest and the Salty Sea: A History of the Liberian People Before 1800 to be shipped to Monrovia. The committee enjoyed a delicious Liberian meal while enjoying their work. The boxes of books, a gift from the Willits Book Trust to people in Liberia, have been shipped abroad to coincide with the author’s return to his native land. Dr. Burrowes is visiting parts of Liberia within and beyond Monrovia to present copies of his book to thought leaders, educators, decision makers, and aspiring students. [Read more…] about Between the Kola Forest and the Salty Sea: Willits Book Trust supports Stories to Heal Liberia

Epistle from “At the Well” Gathering

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December 7-9, 2018, twenty-four Quaker women and genderqueer people with a call to ministry gathered at Stony Point Center, New York to explore and nurture our different ministries. Among those in attendance [from 6 yearly meetings and 19 monthly meetings] were six Friends from Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, two of whom had been on the planning committee for the gathering. “At the Well” grew out of the experience of the 2016 Quaker Women in Public Ministry gathering. The intention of the 2018 conference was to create a space to gather again with a wider circle of Quakers in public ministry, including Friends of all marginalized genders.

At the Well aspired to witness to the particularity of callings laid upon participants’ hearts by providing a venue for Spirit to knit together a blessed community of connection, support, mentoring, restoration, and passion. From the epistle, linked below: “As have the many generations of Quaker ministers that have come before us, we gathered for renewal. Coming from many places in the U.S. and Mexico, we arrived parched, excited, discouraged, weary, and hopeful.”

The time together was, as one participant described it, “A time of making vital connections, giving and receiving encouragement, looking at hard truths, and remembering that the Power of the Spirit comes through groups better than through individuals.” The At the Well epistle lifts up the words of Margaret Fell, “We are a people that follow after those things that make for peace, love, and unity,” and we challenge ourselves to truly live into embodying the full meaning of these words, rather than using them to maintain the status quo. Even as we lifted up hard truths about challenges to carrying ministry in the Religious Society of Friends, particularly the impact of racial injustice, we ask: what does love look like in times of conflict?

Read more powerful testimony from the gathering:  Epistle of At the Well Gathering, December 2018

Families Sharing Stories in the Christmas Season

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“Parents are their children’s first and most important teachers,” was wisdom I learned from my mother, who was an advocate for children and families in all her work. It was some of the most important learning I took into the classroom with me as a teacher. It is of course true as well in religious education, though I would widen the role to include grandparents and other caregivers helping to raise a child. Stories often provide common ground across generations for sharing what’s in our hearts and teaching about our faith.

Amy Owsley from Third Haven Friends Meeting shares how families in the meeting came together to share the Christmas story with their children, and with one another. In a season often focused on worldly delights and diversions, how could the time before Christmas — a day that Friends did not traditionally celebrate as a holiday — also be about exploring the “meaning and relevance of the Christmas story in our lives today.”

Last September at a First Day School family open house, the PYM Youth Engagement Coordinator, Melinda Wenner Bradley, spoke to us about “Children, Families, and the Quaker Community.” One of the resources she shared was a story about the Advent season, adapted for Friends from the Godly Play story.  It was just one of a whole batch of rich resources, but the idea of this particular story caught the heart of several families.  We wondered if we could use this story to imbibe the busy, hectic Christmas season with more meaning?   And we could we do this individually with our families at home, but in a way that built community among our families in the Meeting?

Right after Thanksgiving, several families gathered together with reams of felt, little wooden peg figures, paint and sewing needles to make the materials needed to tell the story.  One our Meeting members, Susan Claggett, began the evening by sharing with the parents a Faith & Play story, and giving us some pointers on storytelling at home. Together we then made a handful of “Advent story kits” that we could take home.  The kits are humble little collections — not a bit of polish to them!   They are simple, made with heart, and carry our collective hope for creating connection and quiet in our lives during the holiday.

The Advent story can be told in four parts, so on each of the four Sundays of Advent, we share one more part of the story with our family at home.  Then we informally share our experiences the next Sunday among our group at Meeting.  The weeks unfold the Christmas story from the perspectives of the knowing prophets, the waiting and journeying of the holy family, the shepherds in the fields who are first to receive the news of the baby’s birth, the travels of the three Magi, and then the animals who witness the wonder of the birth of Jesus.  We are finding such magic in a quiet moment with our families each week, dwelling on the meaning and relevance of the Christmas story in our lives today.  Again, there isn’t any elegance or perfection here, as we are all fumbling a bit as we learn . . . but somehow this imperfection makes the experience sweeter and accessible, as our kids deepen their curiosity about the mystery of Christmas, and we parents deepen our kinship with others in the Meeting.

Gratitude Everyday

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A reflection on Beyond Complicity: Awakening Anti-Racist Intentions, a series Toward Racial Justice and Fearless Faithfulness. A called gathering took place on Nov. 18, when Mickleton Friends Meeting intentionally listened to Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, chapter 3, The Truth About the First Thanksgiving. The books author, sociologist James W. Loewen, presents examination of Eurocentric and mythologized views of American history.

From Loewen’s perspective, we examined our strong-hold on the belief that the American holiday, Thanksgiving, holds a place of welcome for all individuals and faiths, some of us able to accept that the holiday holds myths that continue to minimize Native Nations peoples. We compared various maps, exposing how “discovery” of empty lands might be shifted when simply compared to maps void of political boundaries and marked with cultural features of the peoples living in specific regions.

The self-examination of perspective called us to remain as open as possible toward being transformed as we walk out into the world as myth-busters, dis-clothed of defensive cloaks, speaking Truths. We walked away with unity that giving thanks is not bound to one day. Surrounded by light, blessings abound, and gratitude is rightly ordered, freely available to everyone, if and when one might choose to see and acknowledge.

Seekers are invited to visit Mickleton Friends; First Day (Sunday) meeting for worship begins at 10am; also open to the public, the next examination of Beyond Complicity: Awakening Anti-Racist Intentions will take place December 16, 2018, ~11:30, after rise of meeting and fellowship. We will listen to Bryan Stevenson’s TED Talk, We Need to Talk About An Injustice paired with Martin Luther King, Jr’s Six Steps of Nonviolent Social Change.

The State of our Meetings

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Introduction

Friends of the Quaker Life Council have collected these kernels of wisdom from Quarters, Monthly Meetings, and Worship Groups throughout the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. We hope that others will delight in these practices as we have. We hold this information up to you not as a burden but as a source of strength and inspiration from God’s presence amongst Friends.

When composing minutes, meetings either had an individual or a team prayerfully consider how to respond to PYM queries or queries the meeting community created. After collecting answers, Friends brought the report to a business meeting for further amendment and final approval. The Quaker Life Council formed a Sprint to read the reports from 2018 and most of 2017. Insightful responses or concerns were compiled into categories:

Deepening the Spiritual Community​​: ​Worship, Spiritual Growth, First Day School

Friends found a variety of ways to enhance worship and find a closer bond with Spirit. Some prepared for worship by collective singing and reading sacred texts aloud. Others sank into the Silence with the children present. During worship, some meetings preferred an unprogrammed format while others used a monthly prepared message or query. In closing worship, some groups preferred the children to enter a settled meeting. Others sang to end worship. Many meetings shared joys, concerns, after-thoughts, introductions, and announcements after worship.

Friends used many different methods of spiritual improvement. Yoga, meditation, mindfulness, and extended worship were practiced. Classes such as Spiritual Formation, Quakerism 101, Quaker Quest, and a speakers’ series were additional paths to fostering growth.

First Day School was often enhanced with trained, hired instructors aided by volunteers. Weekly sessions for all age groups using spiritual text, video, and/ or speakers were helpful.

Building Community: Social Contacts, Membership, Business, Anti-Racism, Concerns

Community was best built through social activities that bring joy and fellowship to all ages such as: intergenerational games, movies, star-gazing, meals, singing, scavenger hunts, etc…
Greeters at doorways makes others feel welcome. Notes to Friends at college or lifecare communities lets them know they are remembered. Notes on holidays and birthdays help everyone. Having social dinners for attenders welcomes them to the community.

Caring for the meeting’s business is a spiritual practice filled with concrete, practical tasks. Creating brochures introducing Friends’ ideas and practices educates all. Sending Friends to clerking workshops provides future trained leaders. Reviewing practices involving committees, records, bylaws, and finances helps Friends maintain best modern practices. Providing time between MFB and MFW helps Friends adjust their spiritual focus

Community often means helping each other with challenges. For majority Friends, acting on racism often begins with looking within oneself. It is helpful to join a group, preferably outside one’s comfort zone. There is a great deal of literature and media available for educating oneself and others. What is important is to begin the process and maintain humility. Challenges can also involve how to adapt to a changing community, aging buildings, and declining membership.

Involving the World: Local organization, Friends institutions, Witnessing to the World

Friends find their spiritual strength and growth not just within their houses of worship but also outside in their surrounding community, letting their lives and actions speak to others. Many meetings encourage outside groups to use the meetinghouse and grounds. Others invite the outside community in for special events. Having a strong, positive relationship with neighbors solves many problems in advance. This is also true when a meeting may share space with another organization like a school. Neighbors provide opportunities as well as challenges.

If a meeting is connected to a Friends institution, it is important to set up a Care Committee to nurture the spiritual, financial, and physical assets the two organizations use. Invite families to worship on First Day. Provide financial support for Friends of all ages to participate in Friends institutions as well as contribute to and publicize activities of FCNL, AFSC, FGC, etc…

Witnessing one’s Spirit-led beliefs, ideals, and actions often means public action in one’s own community and in the broader world. Public vigils of protest or commemoration can inspire others to act. Some meetings share monthly meals with those in need as an act of shared experience instead of only charity. Other Friends give material aid to refugee families including ESL and citizenship classes. Collecting goods + books to be shipped elsewhere may be expensive but still needed. Quarters and meetings can organize service trips on their own or with other faith communities. Service involves learning about one’s community and discerning what help is needed especially if Friends are open to being transformed by the experience.

These ideas listed here come directly from PYM’s monthly and quarterly meetings as we renew the old tradition of sharing year-end reflections of our practices with each other. This first year is a step towards learning more from each other as well as where Spirit is guiding us. The Friends on the Quaker Life Council gathered this information as a service to Friends and Meetings throughout the Yearly Meeting. Our hope is that this year’s reports will inspire more Meetings to take the time to renew the art of collective reflection on the past year to guide Friends to where God is leading them in the coming year.

Promised Land

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Love and labour within Salem Quarter was released into our wider religious Society of Friends with  PYM’s First Contact Reconciliation Collaborative. During the kick-off workshop at Annual Sessions 2017, participants leaned in toward understanding Tribal Sovereignty. Recently, following the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) convention in Denver, outreach was initiated by “extended family,” Rev. Dr. JR Norwood (Nanticoke-Lenape), co-chair for NCAI’s task force on federal recognition, to tribal allies, the SQ Indian Affairs Committee. Pastor Norwood brings to Friends’ attention the Nov. 2nd screening of PROMISED LAND, hosted by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) in conjunction with the NCAI and the Alliance of Colonial Era Tribes (ACET.) The documentary is an award-winning social justice documentary that follows two tribes as they fight for the restoration of treaty rights they’ve long been denied. In following their story, the film examines a larger problem in the way that the government and society still looks at tribal sovereignty. Pastor Norwood will be part of a post screening panel discussion at NCAI; details are posted on the PYM calendar. Coming First Contact Reconciliation Collaborative events will continue to help shed light on denials of tribal sovereignty, human rights, and social justice. The FCRC website offers a variety of “growing edge” opportunities; we are open to hearing how we might further serve Friends.

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