Young Adult Friends wrote a 2019 Epistle on Membership asking the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting to reconsider how membership is defined. They made the point that “a simple model of monthly meeting membership, in which one belongs to a singular community for life, is no longer useful.” This question has sparked reflection and has now risen to one of the three big initiatives of the Yearly Meeting in 2021.
Johanna Jackson, who is 31, came to March 2021 Continuing Sessions at the invitation of our Rising Clerk, Melissa Rycroft. During Spring Continuing Sessions Melissa led PYM through a PowerPoint on the question of belonging and membership in the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, and welcomed Johanna’s thoughts on what other kinds of Quaker community could be envisioned for our community.
Inspired by their powerful vocal ministry that day, here follows a deeper conversation about belonging with the two of them.
Question for Melissa Rycroft: Quakers have a tendency to look back for inspiration when seasoning a question, as well as looking forward. Looking back, through a lens of continuing revelation, how do you think early Friends would have advised us? Looking ahead, what essential questions could we ask today?
Melissa: As we examine membership and belonging, we’re really considering how well our past practices meet our current needs. As Faith and Practice tells us, someone becomes a member of a monthly meeting and as a result, they are also a member of their quarter and the yearly meeting. This system works well if someone feels a sense of connection to the monthly meeting and understands the relationship with the quarterly and yearly meetings.
Today we know there are Friends who aren’t aware of these nested layers of membership. For them, their primary spiritual home may be in the yearly meeting or monthly meeting but they may not feel any connection to other Quaker structures.
I cannot speak for early Friends, but I recognized many of our current structures and practices were created over time to meet their spiritual needs. If those structures and practices are an impediment for modern Friends seeking to engage with contemporary Quakerism, then those systems can and should grow and evolve.
Consider a traditional jigsaw puzzle: each piece fits in only one location, because the shape, pattern, and color dictate that this piece only “fits” in one spot in the puzzle.
Have you ever found that puzzle piece that seems like it should fit, but no matter how hard you push, it won’t go in? Or have you diligently sorted the pieces and rejected one that clearly got into the wrong box, only to later discover that the piece does belong in that puzzle?
Sometimes we hear Friends reflect on how well someone “fits” in a meeting. We may be pleased to share that our frequent new attender “fits in perfectly” in the existing meeting ecosystem. This can be problematic – it implies that we’re trying to determine if this new person blends into our existing community, rather than recognizing the unique gifts, talents, and experiences this person brings to the meeting.
On the other side, a new attender may find themselves challenged to fully express their authentic self if they suspect that they won’t fit in.
- When we enthusiastically acknowledge that someone fits in our meeting, what does that say about us?
- When we suggest that it seems as if an attender is not a good fit, what are we saying about them and ourselves?
- Are we open to experiencing each other as authentically as possible?
Question for Johanna Jackson: You attended Continuing Sessions and spoke about Membership and Belonging. Tell us more about how you arrived and joined the group.
Johanna: Well, that is an interesting story because I sort of invited myself in. I didn’t know anything at all about Continuing Sessions, because my local meeting, for the most part, is focused on other things. I didn’t know there was a conversation going on Membership and Belonging. I found out by accident that the conversation was even happening – because I happen to be in a COVID bubble with the clerk of our meeting. And I happened to visit his house on a day that the letter from PYM was open on the table. So that’s how I found out.
The more I learned, the more I saw that the problems happening locally – which include a systemic exclusion of people based on age – are also happening nationally. This is not just my personal opinion. This is what I understand, based on asking 20-25 younger Friends about their experiences and their lives. Lots of people’s voices are getting shut out from our community.
So I felt that I should go to Continuing Sessions and share a little about this. I called someone from my quarter, who was Melissa Rycroft, our rising PYM clerk. ‘I’m clerking that meeting,’ she said. This conversation happened the night before Continuing Sessions. So I agreed, with a day’s notice, to go and speak there about what I am hearing and seeing among Friends. It came together pretty fast. Sometimes Spirit moves quickly.
But you didn’t know the conversation was happening until right before? Why was that?
No, I learned about it at Quarterly Meeting for Worship for Business, about one week before Continuing Sessions.
In my meeting, people are busy raising a lot of concerns. And this one got lost in the fray. The request went to Worship and Ministry, which is bogged down with tons of requests. That is what happens when we burden committees with unrealistic workloads – not everything gets done. But in addition, the committee didn’t think to check with the younger Friends who are out here worshipping locally. My local meeting has about 15 people under the age of 35. And they are directly impacted by this (Membership and Belonging) decision. But there’s a lack of awareness of why, and a real lack of awareness in general. So the people who had the most at stake were not consulted. That’s not cool. That’s where age segregation gets us.
Johanna, how would younger Friends benefit from expanding membership? What’s the issue that’s at stake?
Johanna: It’s hard to answer this question, because so many people lead so many different kinds of lives. But here’s an example. Many of my close friends are Quakers my age. I’m 31. My close friends are all really involved with Quakers. Quaker stuff is important to them. They’re active at the FGC Gathering or at their quarterly meeting. They go to Powell House and cofacilitate retreats. They’ve been training with the Alternatives to Violence Program. That kind of stuff.
For many of these folks, their spiritual community goes beyond the local level. They are reaching further afield, because that’s where they need to go to meet spiritual needs. Maybe their local meeting is stodgy. Maybe it has people who are all their grandparents’ age. You want to find a Quaker life partner? You want to go do something active? Or talk about antiracism work with people who are really doing the work? You might need to reach farther afield.
So we have a membership policy that hasn’t caught up with the times. The reality is that there are many ways to contribute to the Quaker body. They don’t all exist just at the local meeting level.
That’s describing Friends under 55. But yearly meeting membership goes beyond that. It includes folks who live in rural areas with very small meetings, people who are isolated, people who see something very active and alive at the yearly meeting level. One person I know is part of a small, rural meeting that has three people. Three folks! That’s not enough to feed her spiritual condition! She gets her spiritual nourishment by going to Pendle Hill.
Right now, we’re attached to keeping ourselves small and doing what we’ve always done. We continue to draw lines, which shut some people out. What’s keeping us from a broader definition? What is that blockage that keeps us from growing? This needs our care. This needs our attention.
Johanna: You said that we have a membership policy that’s rooted in the past. What are the realities of today? What is it that we need to acknowledge?
Johanna: A lot is different. For one, people are more mobile than they used to be. My peer group is Quaker folks in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. Many of us move houses about once a year. That’s not to say that is the case for everyone, but that definitely is a trend.
We’re working with a Quaker system that takes local stability as its baseline. If you want to contribute to the Quaker cause, we say, you do that at the local-meeting level. You need to arrange your life so you can live in one place for 5-7 years in order to contribute. Well, that just doesn’t work for some people.
Now, we have a group of Friends who are asking us to keep up with the times.
They are asking us to revise a practice and to make it relevant to today’s lifestyles. Not to abandon the old practice, but to let that grow a bit. What will it take for us to look at that with clear eyes?
One final Question for Melissa: As rising clerk at PYM – What might be a timeline for for a yearly meeting-wide decision on changing membership pathways or opportunities at PYM?
Melissa: The process of becoming a member is outlined in Faith and Practice. If we choose to change membership, we can put it on the agenda for Meeting for Business, write a minute, and update Faith and Practice.
Before we do that, I hope we can engage each other around the concept of belonging at all levels of the yearly meeting. There are Friends across the yearly meeting who have found a spiritual home and feel a deep sense of belonging.
Can our membership practices grow and stretch to include those Friends?
In May 2021 PYM will be featuring a conversation between Johanna Jackson and J.T. Dorr-Bremme about their fellowship project.
Resources:
Faith & Practice – Sections on the topic of Membership
Young Adult Friends 2019 Epistle on Membership
Youth, Children and their Families need to hear: “you belong here, with your gifts and Light,” and responding to the needs of young people is the work of the whole meeting, not only the committee with care of religious education. The resources below share encouragement and practical ideas:
- Families at the Threshold (welcome for families)
- Friendly Spaces for Families
- 4 Videos on Welcome and Inclusion of Families in Our Meetings
Meetings may also wish to consider these framing questions from the above interview:
- When we enthusiastically acknowledge that someone “fits” in our meeting, what does that say about us?
- When we suggest that it seems as if an attender is not a good fit, what are we saying about them and ourselves?
- Are we open to experiencing each other as authentically as possible?
- What’s keeping us from a broader definition (of membership)?
- What is that blockage that keeps us from growing?
- There are Friends across the yearly meeting who have found a spiritual home and feel a deep sense of belonging outside local meeting membership. Can our membership practices grow and stretch to include those Friends?
Featured Photo credit: Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash
