Germantown Monthly Meeting
Spiritual State of the Meeting Report 2023
This year, the Germantown Monthly Meeting considered the request from Ministry and Care Committee of the Quaker Life Council for a report on the Spiritual State of our Meeting by reflecting on the queries in various committees and in a called Meeting for Business.
How is Spirit moving in your worship, and how have you nurtured deep, Spirit-led vocal ministry?
We are delighted to see so many newcomers and that newcomers are speaking at meeting. A number of new people are teachers at Germantown Friend School; a few of whom teach Quakerism, which adds to the spiritual depth of their messages. More interaction between the school community and the meeting will make both stronger. Oral ministry varies in depth between the more recent attenders. A Friend shared that he was impressed that, at two recent meetings for worship where an initial message was not deep, Friends responded with messages that resulted in gathered meetings. Reading of the queries on a monthly basis helps ground our worship. It was suggested that we bring forward the guidelines for spoken ministry that we wrote a few years back. We would have to develop a plan to do this and how to do it.
In the past five years we have made a lot of technical changes, and the transition was hard, but we are used to it now. Many new people are drawn to this wonderful religious practice, our religious society that we hold not with centralized doctrine but with what we feel are commonly held deep beliefs. We should prioritize our worship at this time and day each week. We are still learning how to find the big expansive silence and togetherness, and the discipline of being in a worshipful state. We are challenged with going deeper. The well is still there. We come, we replenish.
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 try to do all of these things, but it is a challenge to really accomplish them.
The Care and Visiting Committee aims for each local adult member of our Meeting to have an assigned member of the C&V Committee as their “visitor” who keeps in touch with them in order to know how they are doing and to be aware of situations in which they may need assistance. These connections are maintained through phone calls, emails, letters and notes, or actual visits. The committee meets monthly to share (confidentially) any concerns we have about members who may be in need of care. They try to make themselves known to the membership so they know who to contact if they are needing help or guidance.
For members who live at a distance, we intend to send an annual friendly letter of greeting, inquiring about how they are doing. Unfortunately, we have not done this for the past several years because of technological difficulties.
Worship and Ministry tries to give loving feedback to people’s messages informally including after meeting at refreshment hour. We have events that people can join in and feel a part of our community. One of our committee members has been a mentor to others. Our adult class and outreach activities are also ways we care for newcomers. A Friend offered that, even with a hybrid meeting, the meeting is getting back to its core.
The children of the Meeting experience this care through the First Day School Program which is vibrant. In the Spring of 2023, they focused on Quakerism and in the fall they transitioned to learning old testament stories. The program has grown tremendously in the past year, with several families of young children joining the program.
We gather the young children at the Meetinghouse, but we still don’t have a way of gathering the older kids, the Young Friends. We need members to step up and do that. A parent tried to gather them on Zoom, but they really wanted to be in person. Their parents have volunteered, but the kids want to be independent of their parents. This is a hole in our community.
How have you been called to address issues of social justice, inclusivity and difference, both within your meeting and in the wider world?
The Racial And Social Justice Committee (RSJC) in its current form represents a partial consolidation of the old Peace and Social Concerns Committee (P&SCC) and the former Racial Justice Committee of Germantown Meeting. The consolidation took place less than a decade ago; it was an effort to strengthen the Friends social justice mandate while also implicitly promoting the reformation of a peace committee and the strengthening of the Peace Testimony within the Meeting. While we believe that there has been progress on the former front there has been no structural development on the latter, though there has been advocacy on specific peace related issues such as support for the UN Treaty for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons, that was ratified in 2017.
In this period of consolidation, the RSJC has consequently served as a, if not the, peace committee of Germantown Meeting. We have, for example, been the standing committee supporting efforts to advocate for a ceasefire in Gaza. The function of the RSJC is, like other elements of the Meeting, to advance Friends testimonies in the world.
The RSJC functions most directly with issues and groups beyond the Meeting. Since the consolidation, RSJC has been the body that has made recommendations for funding from the Meeting’s GMM Fund. RSJC, with an allocation of $4000 each year, in turn suggests groups, most of them community based, that reflect Friends testimonies. Accordingly, the RSJC has continued support of Kelly Green, both in its gardening activities and its now shovel-ready new playground; it has provided resources for the Crossroads Women’s Center; and activities of POWER. It also promotes the Meeting’s support of educational work in Uganda.
RSJC’s charge is not just recommendations for money from the Meeting. Its members have been active in the community, doing such work as organizing and implementing food programs, promoting alternatives to mass incarceration, and advocating for reproductive rights as well as the rights of transgender people.
The continuing imperative of racial justice continues as a basic charge of the RSJC within the Meeting as well as externally. The RSJC’s mandate has been enlarged. We continue to try to fulfill our responsibilities as Friends and members of the Germantown Meeting. We believe that the Meeting has been responsive in a positive way in a highly contentious time to some of the most polarizing issues with much still to do.
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?
We have a Liaison to the Climate Witness Stewards.
Many members of Germantown Meeting are deeply concerned about the potential for harm to human civilization and to many of Earth’s life forms by events predicted to become manifest from global warming. Meeting members accept that the changes which we have seen and those to come are the result of human activity, specifically the burning of fossil fuels resulting in production of carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas. Based on a minute from Germantown Meeting, in July 2022, Philadelphia Quarter adopted the term, “impending climate catastrophe” for some of the predicted future events because “climate change” is a benign term which does not stimulate action to reverse the comfortable and convenient lifestyles which burning fossil fuels has given us. The particular future event of great concern is the melting of sufficient polar ice to raise sea levels and flood coastal cities and farmlands, displacing populations, exacerbating all social problems, and probably creating some new very difficult problems. (Philadelphia is a coastal city.)
Addressing the impending climate catastrophe calls for action—significant action. We have had a committee on climate matters. In previous years we have improved the heating system of the Meetinghouse, making it more efficient. We have stopped some of the heat leaks. We have studied repeatedly the possibility of insulating the walls. (The ceiling is very well insulated.)
We have considered installing electric vehicle charging stations, but concluded it is not appropriate at the time. We have discussed installing solar panels but have not yet come to unity on moving forward with it. The Meeting’s electricity is sub-metered off of the Germantown Friends School electric account. In order for installing solar to make economic sense, it needs to be done in conjunction with the school.
Several of our members have taken action to reduce their personal climate impact and influence climate policy more broadly. Some are driving electric cars, some plug-in hybrids, some all electric. One member uses an electric motor assisted bicycle for most of his local travel. Several families have installed solar panels on their homes.
Addressing broader climate policy, individual members have supported various climate related issues in the Pennsylvania Legislature. A member of our meeting participates in POWER Interfaith’s Climate Justice and Jobs Campaign and reports back to the Meeting periodically. One of our members is active with Interfaith Power and Light and another has lobbied on climate issues with FCNL. The Meeting has just received copies of PYM’s document “Creating a Playbook for Climate Action.” Our Environmental Concerns Committee will be reviewing it and, based on that review, will propose a process for engaging the broader meeting in developing our Germantown Meeting playbook.
How have you sought to be neighbors and in relationship with other communities, and how have you been changed by these connections?
We have a monthly food give-away coordinated by Jondhi Harrell, our member and the head of The Center for Returning Citizens. We have invited Germantown Friends School families to join us for worship. Some members help at the school library at the Kelly School, a public elementary school near our meeting. We have representatives active with POWER, an interfaith, social change organization in Philadelphia, as well as at Friends Committee on National Legislation. Zoom has allowed us to extend ourselves to others.
We are connected with our Quarterly Meeting and recently answered their call for ideas about how the Quarter can best serve our needs.
The Meeting has worked in the last year to improve its connection to the school which is under its care, but the relationship remains contentious. The Clerk has begun meeting monthly with the Clerk of the School Committee and the Head of School. Meeting members have been attending Thursday Worship with the Upper School and others have been joining lower school classrooms for informal worship. Some see the school (GFS) as an agency and place of outreach which is important to the health of the Meeting. Indeed, several young families from the school have recently begun attending. Some members find the school’s looming presence is a challenge which pushes us away from the testimonies that we might wish to witness. Recently, the difficulties have been exacerbated by the conflict in the Middle East. Some have expressed concern that the Meeting has bowed to the school and censored our voices. We need to re-engage with the principle of the open door and being tolerant, while at the same time, if we are met by extremely intolerant perspectives, that we hold the well-being of children first and foremost. For example, in the fall, after pressure from the school administration, who were under pressure from some Jewish families of the School expressing the fear their children felt, the Clerk took down a banner [Kids for Peace and Justice] that included the phrase, “Cease Fire Now,” which was made by the First Day School Children. After consultation with some meeting members, that phrase was replaced with a dove. More recently, the School administration asked the Clerk to have taken down symbols of Palestinian solidarity that were posted on the porch of the Meeting’s Cottage by the meeting member/tenant. The Clerk insisted that proper Quaker Process calls for the Meeting as whole to consider whether to ask to have the symbols taken down. After the Clerk received and shared a number of letters from Jewish parents upset about the signs of Palestinian solidarity, demanding action, and not willing to wait a week for discussion at Business Meeting, the member took down the symbols. We need to continue to explore how individuals, the school, and the meeting, are or are not following Quaker process and connecting the spirit and the actual manifestations of what we do. This relationship continues to need our discernment and prayer.
Several Friends noted that they feel we are missing a sharing, a being part of a whole, of people who all believe the same thing. We have individual Friends who are working in a diverse set of areas related to Quaker testimonies. Racial justice, climate and environment, economic justice. Property Committee works to decrease our carbon footprint; Racial and Social Justice Committee does their work, etc. But our Meeting as a whole is not gathered and in sync on many of those issues. We seem to lack a sense of the Meeting working together as a community. Striving to be a more gathered witness to the Quaker testimonies would be a positive step.
Several members noted our successes. Membership has grown, thanks to Adult Class, Outreach, Childcare and First Day School. We have been attracting members of the school community, both teachers and parents. Some are considering applying for membership. We are looking at reviving the Meeting Retreat, which was a successful community-building event for a number of years. The Spirit is strong, alive. And God is with us.
Approved, April 14, 2024 by Germantown Monthly Meeting
