Birmingham Monthly Meeting
Spiritual State of the Meeting Report
April 2024
This report is in response to a request from Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (PYM) for a spiritual state of the meeting report for 2024 and addresses specific questions posed to our meeting from PYM.
How is Spirit moving in your worship, and how have you nurtured deep, Spirit-led vocal ministry?
Birmingham Friends Meeting (BMM) is a community of thoughtful, caring individuals who support one another in their spiritual journeys and in living the Quaker testimonies. For three Sundays (4 when there are 5 Sundays) of the month, we have an opening exercise for 15 minutes preceding worship which introduces a topic of thoughtful consideration for the community. While opening exercise is not part of worship, many community members appreciate the spiritual foundation from which the topic is chosen. This process seems to be effective. A subcommittee of the Nominating Committee recently conducted a survey of members and attenders regarding a number of issues. There were 50 responses. Friends were asked how much they valued Sunday worship and midweek worship. 78% highly value and 20% value Sunday worship (98% total). For midweek worship which meets via Zoom and has a lower attendance rate, 6% highly value and 10% value this meeting while 46% are neutral. While the midweek numbers are lower, the attenders of midweek meeting have often remarked how meaningful midweek worship is to them.
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?
BMM has a number of supports and activities that let individuals know that they matter and that encourage active communication between members/attenders. Each Sunday, we have a greeter who welcomes everyone to meeting. If a visitor comes in, he/she/they are given special attention, but not pressured, and we will follow up with them if the visitor indicates that this would be welcomed.
BMM also has a system of “care groups” in which every member is placed in a group under the care/leadership of a member of our Oversight and Pastoral Care Committee. There is also a prayer chain and a casserole patrol to deliver meals if someone needs the assistance. As for including those of all ages, each Sunday after worship when announcements are made, we always get a report from the Children’s Program and what lesson they learned that day. We also make an effort to include the children and youth at special occasions during the year such as during our Christmas carol sing and at our annual chicken barbecue.
The recent addition of a book group also brings participants together for active discussion of diverse books and the sharing of ideas.
How have you sought to be neighbors and in relationship with other communities, and how have you been changed by these connections?
As a member of Concord Quarter, we have welcomed and embraced the commingling of our individual communities. BMM members have been intimately involved in quarterly business with our members serving a variety of leadership roles throughout the past several years. As for those outside the Quaker world, we welcome a painters’ group to our meetinghouse every Monday. Also, throughout the year, the Sacred Harp singers use our meetinghouse for practice and then bless us with a performance before worship every Labor Day weekend. Our meetinghouse is also used by the local elections department for voting purposes whenever elections are held. It is our goal to be a welcoming presence to the wider community.
BMM is also fortunate that we are in proximity of the Kendal/Crosslands retirement communities. Through the years, we have been blessed to have a number of our members come to Birmingham from there, and many of them are seasoned Quakers who have moved to the area with rich experiences from other meetings and areas of the country. Our community has been positively impacted for years by these individuals who have chosen BMM as their spiritual home.
How have you been called to address issues of social justice, inclusivity, and difference, both within your meeting and in the wider world?
While our Peace and Social Concerns Committee no longer regularly meets, our members individually have continued to support issues of social justice. Members have raised and continue to raise funds for the purchase of mine detectors to disarm land mines set by countries in prior military conflicts. Other members have been involved in refugee resettlement, alternative to violence training in prisons, food collection for our local food bank, native American land acknowledgments, and volunteering at the Friends Association for the Care and Protection of Children. Our members have also given of their time and talents by serving on the boards of the Female Benevolence Society, The Hickman, Barclay Friends, and Friends Association to name a few.
Finally, the Climate Change Sprint group would like to hear from you about your meeting’s work on climate change:
• How has the Spirit guided your work on climate change?
• How has your 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?
We have not appointed a Climate Witness liaison as it is a challenge enough to find individuals to become actively involved in all of our committees. If someone should step forward to offer to engage in this work, we would certainly welcome their contributions.
As a meeting, we have been purchasing green energy for a number of years because of our care for the environment despite the fact that it costs more. A few years ago, we changed our heating system so that it would be more energy efficient. Hardly a decision is made by our Property Committee without consideration of the environment. Here’s an example. Our old meetinghouse recently needed some roofing work done, but it was discovered that we had bats living in our attic that apparently had been there for quite awhile (as evidenced by the substantial pile of guano). While some secular groups may have elected to exterminate the bats, we took great care to hire a company that was experienced in relocating these creatures elsewhere. It took time, but it was done the right way, or as some would say, the Quaker way! It should be noted also that, as stewards of the environment, these themes are often a topic for discussion in our Children’s Program. We care about our physical world and the generations who will be living here long after we are gone.
In which areas does your meeting have a success story or advice to share with other meetings? In which areas does your meeting have particular concerns or need for support from the yearly meeting?
• Care of Worship (e.g., How can we get more/fewer people to offer vocal ministry?)
We feel that we have a good balance of silence to vocal ministry. As you would expect, there are some Sundays where there is much vocal ministry and some with all silence, but generally we feel that we have a strong spiritual foundation in vocal and silent worship. We are exploring intergenerational worship on occasion. Involving families with children in our meetings for worship asks us to be more flexible in our expectations of unprogrammed, waiting worship. It is important to us to be open to the spirit and to change as we continue to grow and worship together as a community.
• Outreach and Inclusion (e.g., How do we welcome newcomers warmly without overwhelming them?)
We have experienced members who greet everyone with kindness each week. Visitors are informed that they may be contacted if they wish. If you are a visitor to BMM, it is certain that you will be approached after worship by members of our meeting. This is done, not as a committee assignment, but out of care and genuine interest.
• Adult Education Resources (e.g., How can we learn and share about our faith outside of worship?)
We have a couple of “spiritual enrichment” programs each year offered via Zoom by our Worship and Ministry Committee. These online programs enable people to participate without having to leave their homes at night – and it is environmentally more responsible. The Quaker Speak videos have been an important resource for initiating discussion in these programs, and we are thankful to Friends Journal that they are available. Every couple of years or so, we offer a series for newcomers called Exploring Quakerism. The series is discussion based and covers essential aspects about Quaker faith and practice and how our meeting works.
• Families and Children (e.g., What religious education resources are available to use?)
We have childcare and a program for children and youth every Sunday. We have moved away from a scholastic-based model of teachers and lessons to a more experiential model where adults guide and support young people in the spiritual formation through exploration of topes and stories, wondering questions, and discovery from experience. We use stories from the Bible and about Quakers and people from other traditions whose lives are a testimony to faithfulness. There are stories about love, caring, forgiveness and doing the right thing in difficult times. Activities are planned with families in mind, and children are welcome in our meeting for worship. Our property is used as an outdoor classroom for care of the Earth. We have a small tree nursery containing seedlings collected and cared for by children until they are ready to into the ground permanently. Within the past year, we have also started and maintain a colony of bees as an educational project for the children.
• Youth and Young Adults (e.g., How can we create a welcome space for youth and young adults in the meeting?)
Our youth group meets once a month when they conduct their own meeting for business. During the year, they work on various projects which are self-determined.
• Witness (e.g., How do we walk our talk as Friends?)
We walk our talk through social justice issues as mentioned earlier. Also, each year the proceeds from our chicken barbeque are donated to Quaker related charitable organizations which include both local and national agencies. Ultimately, it is up to each of us to treat all human beings with respect and compassion.
• Committees (e.g., How might a different committee structure be helpful to our meeting in conducting our business?)
For several years our Nominating Committee has been reporting that our structure of standing committees and other assignments is too large and cumbersome for our aging, shrinking meeting community. We have been trying to sustain a structure from a previous generation of the meeting. For our present community with fewer active members and attenders, essential functions might be identified and combined differently than they are now. As mentioned, a Listening Group has been appointed as a first step of considering what is most important to our meeting community now and what expectations from the past we might let go of. We are looking forward to small group discussions in coming months to see how we might re-vision ourselves with renewed energy and purpose.
• Quarters (e.g., How can being part of an active Quarter have an impact on meetings and individuals?)
The Quarter is a great way to interact with other Quakers in our geographic area and to understand and to appreciate the greater Quaker world, but if you look at the previous question, you can see that this takes time, energy, and hard work from an aging population. Concord Quarter has had valuable programs in the past, but it is difficult to sustain the energy to keep these programs alive. It helps to have a capable coordinator who has a solid standing in the local Quaker community.
• General Questions or Needs (e.g., Could someone visit my meeting?)
We have no general questions at this time.
