Looking outwards

Kim Hope explores the role of welcome and ‘in-reach’ within the Society

Two separate incidents have given me pause for thought recently: the first was at our Local Meeting where I am co-clerk. As is my usual custom (and the custom of my co-clerk) at the end of Meeting for Worship after we had all shaken hands and quietly welcomed each other individually, I stood to welcome everyone present. As we had visitors, I began by telling everyone my name, role, and also introduced my co-clerk by name. Then I asked if any of the visitors would like to say who they were and where they came from. They all did. If there had been no visitors, I would not have mentioned my name, of course, as all present would have known it.

What perturbed me is that over coffee one of the visitors, a Quaker from a different Area Meeting, said that he had never before seen a clerk give her name and role before inviting visitors to say who they were. He said he had visited a number of Meetings over the years and this was the first time he had seen the custom. This seemed strange to me as it feels like simple politeness to give one’s own name if one is expecting other people to introduce themselves. This visiting Friend said he would take this practice back to his own Local Meeting and introduce it there.

The second thing that gave me cause for thought is that I heard a regular attender at one of the Local Meetings in our area mention that she had been on holiday recently and had gone to the nearby Meeting. She said the welcome after Meeting seemed perfunctory and, while some effort was made to talk to them, the atmosphere seemed weary and inward looking. Had this been a first experience of Meeting, it would probably not have encouraged a further visit.

First impressions

I have recently done some research for the West Weald Area Meeting while in the position of ‘outreach consultant’ and one of the questions I asked on the research questionnaire was:

What did you find when you first
came to Quaker Meeting for Worship?

Sixty-two people completed the questionnaire and there were some common threads in the responses to this question, which of course don’t necessarily refer to Local Meetings in West Weald as people move around. Discounting respondents who were brought to Meeting as babies or young children, the keywords were:

• A warm and friendly welcome;
• Friendliness/friendly people;
• Silence, peaceful, spiritual/reverential atmosphere;
• Seeking to connect with God and a sense of calm;
• Sharing, acceptance;
• No pressure, casual, laid-back;
• Thought-provoking, time to think deeply;
• Relief, found refuge, felt at home;
• Quaker ministry;
• Lack of clergy;
• Found people with similar views/values to mine;
• Simplicity.

One respondent also said, ‘It is important to remember that people are very different in the sort of welcome they appreciate. This was handled very sensitively by the person on the door when I first came to Meeting as a visitor in 1979. A strongly effusive (or overly inquisitive) greeting would probably have put me off.’

Taking the first step

One notable piece of information gained from this research is that it took an average of eighteen years between the time a person was first aware of Quakers before setting foot in a Meeting House. (The range was zero to sixty-nine years). Taking into account the estimate – if one extrapolates from this research – that more than half the Friends in the West Weald Area Meeting are over sixty-six, this implies that we need to find a way of letting members of the public who don’t yet know of our existence discover that we are here, and encourage them to come to Meeting sooner. Moreover, those members of the public who already know about Quakers need to discover that we are alive and kicking in their locality. Otherwise in eighteen years’ time many of us will be dead, and membership of our Local Meetings could be cut by half.

It is also notable that many respondents referred to a person or people influencing their decision to come to Quaker Meeting. Often this person was a respected Quaker, and sometimes this influential person was from way back in the past, but still remembered as the catalyst. The catalysts that brought people to Quakers ranged widely. Discounting birthright Friends and children brought to Meeting by their parents,

• sixteen said that it was because of a person – usually a Quaker – who influenced them;
• seven said that the lack of ritual, dogma or creed, and unhappiness with dogmatism in other religions was what brought them;
• five specified either the peace movement or the Quaker peace testimony as the catalyst;
• six said they had been influenced by a Quaker pamphlet or book;
• two came through Quaker Quest.

Other catalysts ranged from the need for stillness, space and silence through to the fact that Quakers ‘don’t sing’! One said that s/he had studied Quakerism as part of an Open University course on religion, one had been a student at Woodbrooke, one said ‘anger’ had brought him to Quakers, while five said they were searching for something.

This research, though limited in scope, has confirmed Harvey Gillman’s assertion in Quaker faith & practice 28.10 that ‘many of the people who come to us are both refugees and seekers’. It also confirms that if we do nothing about gaining new members, the Religious Society of Friends could cease to exist by circa 2032, according to Bill Chadkirk’s article in Quaker Studies (Vol. 9, Issue 1, 2004).

Outreach and ‘in-reach’

It would, perhaps, be helpful to identify Friends and attenders in our Meetings between the ages of twenty-five and sixty-six and discover what it was about Quakers that appealed to them when they first decided to come to us, and what has made them stay within the Religious Society of Friends.

Presumably these younger Friends and attenders have the same demands on their time as people ‘out there’ struggling to fit in their commitments to family, friends, work and other activities. But there is something that draws them to Quakers, something that fulfils their need for space in a spiritual context (see Harvey Gillman, below). We need to find out what this is so that we can communicate this to others out there in order for them to know what we have to offer.

However, maybe we need to work on ourselves first. The final survey question was:

‘Is there anything else you would like to add?’

In response, one Friend said, ‘A “Quaker group” is not immune from conflicts… Conflicts remain unresolved and fester, and this drives away people who would otherwise find the Quaker worship congenial, and who would be a strength to the Meeting… I see it as the responsibility of the Quakers (elders, overseers, interested and experienced Friends) to actively work to resolve conflicts, not to ignore, or withdraw, or expect the incomer to do the resolving.’

Another Friend said, ‘The longer I stay the more ‘disappointed’ I am, because Quakers do not live/practice what I expect from Quaker faith & practice… the way that conflict is dealt with in Meetings (or rather not dealt with) is amazing to me when we have a peace testimony and so many tools to hand’.

Another mentioned that ‘in-reach’ is ‘clearly an important aspect of outreach since newcomers won’t want to stay with us if our Meetings are riven by strife or are unbearably bureaucratic’.

From the responses in the research questionnaire, the experience of the attender and the response of the visiting Quaker, it appears that there is a wide variety of ‘welcomes’ to be had in Local Meetings throughout the Religious Society of Friends.

If we are serious about our survival, and wish to gain new members, we need to work on how we make our visitors welcome. We must take note of the responses to the question, ‘What did you find when you first came to Quaker Meeting for Worship?’ and make sure that our Meetings are welcoming, warm and friendly towards visitors.

A space in a spiritual context

My belief is that in the West Weald Area Meeting, and maybe across the whole Religious Society of Friends, we need – individually and collectively – to be bolder about saying what we are, what we believe and where people can find us.

We need to be open to discovering, and utilising, new ways in which we can be seen out there in the world.

Although the concept of ‘marketing’ ourselves will be anathema to many Friends, we need to find appropriate, new and imaginative ways to communicate with people who are, as Harvey Gillman says, ‘looking for a space to find their authenticity, a space in a spiritual context’.

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