Barnegat Monthly Meeting Religious Society of Friends
Spiritual State of the Meeting Report, 2023, due April 15, 2024
Responses to questions:
1) How is Spirit moving in your worship, and how have you nurtured deep, Spirit-led vocal ministry?
Members and attenders of meeting for worship at Barnegat Meeting are from many different religious leanings. Some have been Quakers for many years or even decades, some come out of mainstream Christian denominations such as Baptist or Episcopal churches, some identify as agnostics or atheists. When Spirit-led vocal ministry occurs, all in attendance at meeting for worship are respectful. There has not been a formal discussion or attempt at nurturing vocal ministry.
2) How have you fostered an environment in which members and attenders of all ages and abilities know they are loved, cared for, trusted, and respected?
We are a group that consciously works at caring about each other and the larger community.
Barnegat Meeting pays particular attention to being inclusive. We showed – and continue to show – love, care, trust, and respect for all members and attenders. With Barnegat Meeting becoming progressively smaller over the years, those who are active have become very close – becoming “little f” friends. We have had no clerk since April, 2021, so members and regular attenders rotate the clerking of Meeting for Business, giving us a shared responsibility and opportunity to respect each other’s efforts. There are so few active members and attenders that we let each other know if we will not worship on an upcoming Sunday and check in with each other if “a regular” does not attend worship and we don’t know the reason. We often share lunch together after meeting. While we have formed close bonds, we are attentive to being welcoming to newcomers. We stay and chat with newcomers after Meeting for Worship and with anyone who wanders in if we are working in the building or on the property. We offer beverages, snacks, literature, and tours.
3) How have you sought to be neighbors and in relationship with other communities, and how have you been changed by these connections?
Barnegat Meeting members have many interests and support many causes individually. Some Meeting members started actively visiting other Friends’ Meetings and forming personal connections with their members and attenders. Friends from other local meetings often attend our events.
The Meeting became more active in local organizations over the last couple of years, supporting some, such as the local community garden and Barnegat Communities That Care, by having their members speak at our meeting house, sharing their literature on-site, and through donations. Annually, Barnegat Meeting makes significant charitable contributions with a large focus on local nonprofits. Over the past year we held monthly Open House events – providing refreshments, opportunity to chat, and, sometimes, a program. We continued to emphasize outreach through the offering of various programs, both on-site and through Zoom. Our Meeting hosts a weekly American Sign Language class and a monthly needlecraft club.
Further afield, Barnegat Meeting collaborated with the Pennsylvania organization, Heeding God’s Call to End Gun Violence, by erecting a display next to our Meeting House for a month. The display contained over 20 t-shirts held up by PVC tubes. Every t-shirt had the name of a victim of gun violence and the date of death. The display made a strong impact on members, attenders, and any others who saw it – emphasizing the need to be aware of and advocate for changes in our country’s gun laws through a tangible reminder of so many tragically-ended lives.
4) How have you been called to address issues of social justice, inclusivity, and difference, both within your meeting and in the wider world?
Barnegat Meeting helps to financially support non-profit organizations which work to address racism. We also increase awareness of social justice concerns through events – one such program last year was a presentation regarding the 339 Manumissions and Beyond Project. During 2023, one member represented Barnegat Meeting in the Addressing Racism Collaborative of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and shared information with Burlington Quarter.
Sharing of resources and best practices:
Areas for which our meeting has a success story or advice to share with other meetings.
And areas for which our meeting has concerns or need for support from the yearly meeting.
Outreach and inclusion: Our outreach efforts over the past two years included both on-site and
Zoom opportunities for anyone to participate in varied programs – including Quaker and non-Quaker-related events and topics. One program was “Researching Your Quaker Roots” with Mary Craudereuff of Haverford College. We participated in Barnegat’s Town-wide Yard Sale in April and handed out pizza at Halloween, resulting in many of the town’s people becoming aware of and meeting REAL LIVE QUAKERS! A zoomed music program attracted one long-ago attender to return, and the result was she became a member in 2023.
General Questions or Needs:
The most pressing need our meeting has is for growth in membership. Stagnant membership and attendance continues to be a problem for Barnegat meeting despite local publicity offering various programs via Zoom and on-site and Open Houses. Through our interactions with members and attenders of other meetings within Burlington Quarterly Meeting, it appears membership is in a state of crisis for most meetings.
PYM could help the concern about growing membership by enhancing the awareness of the existence of Quakers through participation in advertising venues outside of Quaker-specific publications and organizations. For example, we are not aware of PYM advertising with local affiliates of National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting System, whose listeners and viewers are likely to have interests that align with Quaker values. It would also be useful if PYM conducted an examination of the differences between Meetings that are growing and thriving and those which are shrinking, and share the findings. Effectiveness of outreach programs could be assessed and used to update the outreach resources provided by PYM.
Questions from the Climate Change Sprint group:
How has the Spirit guided our work on climate change?
How has our Meeting addressed the action areas identified in the Climate Change Sprint Report: Activism, Education, Reducing Carbon Footprint, and Finances?
Has your meeting appointed a Climate Witness liaison? If not, why not?
Individual members and attenders have concerns and have taken actions related to climate change. The Meeting as a group has not committed to specific actions and has not appointed a Climate Witness Liaison. The small number of members and attenders makes it difficult to attend to every issue of concern.
