Meeting for Sufferings: Friendly vibrancy
Trish Carn reports on an initiative to support Local Meetings
The vibrancy initiative is a joint initiative by the trustees of Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) and Woodbrooke. It is a process of exploration and development in several projects. A joint working group of trustees from both organisations had noticed some areas of common interest in the community that they both serve. The initiative is about helping both organisations shape their work so they can strengthen and give better support to Local Meetings.
Juliet Prager said, in her introduction, that they know ‘Friends are working hard to build and sustain strong, vibrant Meetings. Some Meetings are thriving (some Friends feel their Meetings are “whooshing”), but others are struggling. This is a “live” area, which needs attention and some level of resourcing.’
BYM and Woodbrooke know some Area Meetings are struggling: while the number of people coming to Meetings is fairly stable, the proportion of members to attenders is falling; many Meetings don’t have a regular children’s group; but, more positively, there are places where new shoots are emerging and growing quickly.
Last year BYM conducted some research ‘to learn more about what makes a vibrant Meeting and how to help Quakers in this respect.’
The research suggested that, while every Meeting is different, vibrant Meetings share characteristics such as shared worship, being an optimistic community with active witness and engagement with society, are financially well managed, have effective leadership and so on. However, due to staff changes, the data has not been fully analysed and BYM has now advertised for someone who can sift the data and help the trustees in shaping the future work of supporting Local and Area Meetings.
One Friend objected to the use of the wording ‘refugees from other churches’ used on page four of the findings report, as they felt it denigrated people who were actually political refugees.
A Friend, from a Meeting that participated in the study, told us that the research included ‘worship, reflection and stillness, plus what they lead to’.
Another Friend reminded us ‘Quakers are absolutely activists as well as mystics’ and that the many Meetings outside Europe have young pastors (paid little but given accommodation), who bring a young person’s vibrancy to their Meetings.
‘I am sorry our Meeting wasn’t included in the research, as it is very vibrant. It has an active children’s Meeting and many who want to become members,’ said one Friend. ‘However, many new members don’t know about our Society.’ She asked if the vibrancy initiative will consider how to help with this problem.
A Friend considered, ‘As opposed to vibrancy, I value time for reflection and stillness’. All the other churches in her area are working hard on vibrancy but no one is spending time on reflection.
One Friend ‘likes vibrancy’ and supports collecting data, but just not the number crunching. ‘Maybe we need “friendly” vibrancy.’
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