Spiritual State of the Meeting reports give all of us a glimpse into the communities of meetings in our Yearly Meeting. Together, they create a tapestry that tells the story of our yearly meeting in the last year; a vibrant community engaged in spiritual formation and witness across four states and many experiences of the Spirit. When we are together in residence at an Annual Sessions gathering, there is a thick book with the collected ‘State of the Meeting’ reports. During the years we have gathered online, the special joy of leafing through those printed reports has needed a new model. This year, we again created a virtual “book” of all of the reports. You can access them in this news story and they will also be published in a booklet following Annual Sessions.
The State of the Meeting: Portraits of Faithfulness and Community
This year’s reports are available as webpages, and organized alphabetically by quarter (see below) featuring the submissions received over many months from all sized of meetings, from across the geography of PYM. Some appear as signed letters, some are in Q&A format in response to the queries shared, and some present as lists. Reports were submitted by clerks of the meeting, clerks of ministry and care committees, and through collaborative efforts by committees or discussion by the multigenerational body of the meeting. All tell stories of a year of change, challenge, and gathering together in the Spirit.
The Ministry and Care Committee of the Quaker Life Council engaged deeply with each report and the creation of a Spiritual State of the Yearly Meeting Report (.pdf), which will be posted in the advance documents. The Committee makes these observations, among many others, in their report:
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Our yearly meeting wide witness of climate change has engaged meetings across the span of the meeting—large and small, urban and rural –in many different ways.
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Many meetings are also engaging with an increased focus on the realities of systemic racism in our midst and witnessing to the need for change.
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Outreach to meeting members who are unable to attend worship either in person or through Zoom has been an intention successfully carried through by many meetings.
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Although Zoom has been a very helpful vehicle for adult Religious Education, fellowship, committee meetings and worship of all kinds, it has in general not been as successful for families with younger children and for children’s First Day School.
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The spiritual state of our yearly meeting as reflected in the reports of Monthly Meetings is vibrant and vigorous.
We are also sharing the 2021 membership statistics (.pdf) with this news story. 62 meetings reported this year.
There have been spelling and punctuation, spacing, and formatting adjustments as we assembled these for digital publication. If you think we have missed a copy of your community’s report please be in touch with Melinda Wenner Bradley, Director of Programs, at mwennerbradley@pym.org. We can include additional submissions.
Reports by Quarter
Related Reports
- Membership Statistics for 2021 (.pdf)
- At-Large Memberships 2022 (.pdf)
- Spiritual State of the Yearly Meeting Report (.pdf)
Featured Photo by Grace Cooke: London Grove’s Meeting Oak
