By Mary Linda McKinney
Are you interested in participating in Faithful Meetings but don’t think your meeting could commit? Do you think you could find 5 or 6 other folks in your meeting who also might be interested? Faithful Meetings is expanding to include you!
Over the past year of promoting Faithful Meetings among Friends, hundreds have shared with me the hopes and yearnings they hold for their Quaker meetings. Folks want to know one another in the day-to-day and on a spiritual level, to learn together, to find better ways to deal with conflict, and to have fun together. What I have heard over-and-over is that many Friends long for more in their meetings. Friends want these things that their meetings don’t have the time or energy to provide. The past couple of years have forced change onto meetings stretching available resources thin.
At this point in time, few communities have the energy or cohesion to be able to find unity about participating in a program like Faithful Meetings. Individuals want it but Friends meetings do not have the energy to commit. After promoting Faithful Meetings for a year, I have come to understand that requiring that an entire community commit as a body limits who can participate to the Friends who are in an already thriving community. But it may be the Friends in communities that are not able to find unity who need Faithful Meetings the most.
Beginning now, Faithful Meetings will be available to small groups of Friends within the same community. The content of the program will remain the same although the structure may change. The primary difference will be that a smaller group within a meeting can commit to Faithful Meetings when the larger body is not able to do so.
If you are interested and have not joined me for an information session, you can register for upcoming February gatherings here. If you have attended an information session and want to talk about forming a group in your community, please email me at faithfulmeetings@schoolofthespirit.org. I would love to talk with you soon!
