Westtown Monthly Meeting 2023-2024
Over the past year, within your meeting community:
How is Spirit moving in your worship, and how have you nurtured deep, Spirit-led vocal ministry? We have:
- Committed to offer an Intergenerational Worship, five times per year, employing “Godly Play” and “Faith & Play” storytelling, including all ages for the entire hour-long meeting,
- Re-imagined Children’s Meeting, building strength in our community by hiring and training a regular 1st Day School teacher.
- Handled sensitive and confidential information with care and grace, showing sensitivity in Pastoral Care through News of Friends and reaching out to individuals.
- Instituted a system of tri-clerks, rotating every four months, to involve more members in the process of leadership.
- Formulated a hybrid Meeting for Worship to include homebound and out-of-town members and attenders.
- Regularly begun our Meetings for Worship with a land acknowledgment and ended meeting with Introductions, online and in the room, allowing us to stay mindful, connected across different groups and states.
- Periodically held “called meetings of prayer”, for example, for healing and peace in the Middle East.
- 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?
- Our annual Christmas Eve program attracts a large audience including many who do not attend regular weekly worship.
- Our 2022 programs on Quakerism 101, deep listening and Trust Circles continue to promote an open atmosphere for many members who attended the programs..
- Our observation and celebration of Juneteenth, Kwanzaa and Black History Month speak to our commitment to honoring diversity.
How have you sought to be neighbors and in relationship with other communities, and how have you been changed by these connections? We have:
- Received grants from the Tyson Fund to launch “More Than Neighbors” supporting meetings and schools being better connected and strengthening their shared commitment to anti-racism. We worked collaboratively with Friends Council on Education and Lansdowne Friends School to obtain additional funding to offer the program again in 2024 for five more school/meeting pairs.
- Led a year-long series entitled “Beyond Meeting for Business,” funded by the Shoemaker Fund, supporting numerous meetings in our region to make Meeting for Business a safer space for people of diverse backgrounds to participate vocally.
- Collaborated with Lansdowne Bethel AME Church to form a year-long monthly reparations book-study group (Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance and Repair).
- Continued our Annual Book Swap in December in the spirit of environmentally-conscious sharing and gifting, community fellowship, and zero cost shopping during the holidays.
- Actively supported “Farmer Jawn” – a regenerative farming effort organized by Christa Barfiled, a black woman on the Westtown School Campus. Members have volunteered their time, provided loans, and donated money and equipment.
How have you been called to address issues of social justice, inclusivity, and difference, both within your meeting and in the wider world? We have:
- Maintained active involvement in PYM’s Middle East Collaborative, and with AFSC, FCNL, Friends Council on Education, Christian-Jewish Allies, Combatants for Peace, and the Quaker Palestine-Israel Network (QPIN).
- Regularly shared FCNL updates and requests for action by Friends to reach out to legislators with Meeting members and attenders.
- Signed on to the Quaker call for ceasefire in Gaza: https://www.fcnl.org/sites/default/files/2023-10/quaker-statement-10-17-23.pdf.
- Hosted the Friends Peace Teams for a gathering involving over 60 people from more than 12 countries and 6 continents working for peace and justice.
- Made several public statements, and authored two articles on Israel-Palestine peace work for the Concord Quarter Newsletter.
- Published an article on “Peacemaking in Palestine and Israel” for the January 2023 issue of Concord Quarter’s Newsletter.
- Meeting members who co-led and participated in a March 2023 two-week trip to Israel/Palestine sponsored by Friends Council on Education.
To the Climate Change Sprint group’s questions:
How has the Spirit guided your work on climate change?
Our focus in 2022-23 was on resilience and disaster preparation. In 2023, we focused on Land Stewardship and on reducing our carbon footprint.
How has your meeting addressed the action areas identified in the Climate Change Sprint Report: Activism, Education, Reducing Carbon Footprint, and Finances?
In the spring of 2023, we organized a 4-part webinar series related to land stewardship which included a tour of Quaker retirement homes and Monthly Meetings. The webinars are posted on the PYM youtube channel. We maintained contact with the Concord Quarter Climate Action Working Group and kept abreast of PYM’s Eco-Justice Collaborative’s work..
In the fall of 2023, we organized four webinars in cooperation with the Eco-Justice Collaborative, to encourage Friends institutions to take advantage of new financing for nonprofits and to take action on efficiency, including renewable energy and transitioning to electric vehicles. These webinars are also available on the PYM youtube channel.
Has your meeting appointed a Climate Witness liaison? If not, why not?
No. Our Peace and Justice Committee continues to meet, but has not yet found a volunteer. Our focus on Concord Quarter precluded our having the capacity to appoint a Climate Witness liaison.
