The following queries were brought to Richland Monthly Meeting’s Meeting for Business and a Care and Worship Committee meeting and this report reflects the responses given.
How is Spirit moving within your worship, and how have you nurtured deep, Spirit-led vocal ministry?
Richland is a fairly quiet Meeting without a lot of vocal ministry most weeks. To encourage vocal ministry and to give a better understanding of what it is and how to know if you are truly led to speak, The Adult First Day School group read and studied the parts of “Faith and Practice” pertaining to vocal ministry as well as the Pendle Hill Pamphlet, “On Vocal Ministry” by Barry Crossno and J. Brent Bill.
There are some First Days when there are several messages that are deeply related. There are also mornings when no one speaks, but we feel a deep connection among us in the silence, and even without vocal ministry, “the silence is a peaceful, enriching time” as one member expressed it. However, we believe that we could benefit from more vocal ministry especially for new attenders who may struggle to relate to the silence.
In addition to the study of vocal ministry, we held a two-afternoon workshop led by Melinda Wenner Bradley on the PH pamphlet “Four Doors to Meeting for Worship”. This was a very well attended and much appreciated deep-dive into the preparation for and experience of meeting for worship.
We don’t have a formalized “afterthoughts” practice at this time, but there are times when after-thoughts are given as we introduce ourselves at rise. We have discussed having afterthoughts as a regular practice, but we are not doing that right now.
In addition to our Sunday worship, we also have a small mid-week evening worship that is introduced and led by queries. It is much-loved by those friends who participate in it.
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 have an active Care and Worship Committee that keeps in touch with members who are sick or absent for other reasons and which helps find assistance of various kinds for those who need it.
We have just one regular family with young children and even though they are able to attend only sporadically, there are always two adults with the proper clearances to provide them with a First Day School lesson. The children join Meeting for Worship during the last 15 minutes and during the time afterwards when we introduce ourselves, they are asked if they would like to share what they did. We would love to have more families with children, and feel that it’s important to be ready for them if they do show up.
Our buildings are accessible for the disabled.
We have an informal weekly potluck lunch at rise of Meeting that provides an occasion to get to know new people as well to visit with Friends we know well. We believe it’s an important time that ties us together as a community.
Thinking ahead and taking a preventive approach, we approved an Anti-Harassment Policy adapted for Richland Meeting from PYM’s.
As we have moved through the pandemic and afterwards, Richland has maintained a Zoom connection for Meeting for Worship and Adult First Day School so that our Friends who are travelling or unable to attend in person are able to attend via Zoom. There may have been some uneasiness about having a screen in the meetinghouse at the outset, but Friends have adapted to it and accepted it as a way of keeping everyone in touch.
How have you sought to be neighbors and in relationship with other communities, and how have you been changed by these connections?
Richland has two primary connections with the larger community. We host Food For Friends at our schoolhouse and, along with several area churches, we take turns providing takeout meals every two weeks for approximately 150 people in the Quakertown area. Quite a few of our members and attenders volunteer to help with this endeavor and are enriched by the experience.
Richland is also part of the Quakertown Ministerium and we learn and benefit from that interaction.
We also had Richland Friends join the Christmas Peace Walk in Bethlehem, PA, in its 64th year. The walk connects Quakers and other Peace churches
How have you been called address issues of social justice, inclusivity and difference both within your meeting and in the wider world?
Prior to 2023, we established a connection with The Logan School, a school of predominantly black students in the Germantown section of Philadelphia and each year we have continued to provide certain things that they need and request. Their current need was for a refrigerator which we recently delivered to them.
A group of Richland members has been studying FCNL’s “The World We Seek: Statement of Legislative Policy” which included issues of climate change as well as reproductive health and abortion, criminal justice, voting rights, and many others with the goal of responding to FCNL’s request to tell them our five choices of actions to be taken by FCNL in the upcoming two years. This has involved several meetings that have brought about excellent discussion, enlightenment, and discernment.
Submitted by Barbara Zucker, Clerk of the Care and Worship Committee, Richland Monthly Meeting
