Meeting for Sufferings: Our Faith in the Future
Meeting for Sufferings continued work on its new framework document
Meeting for Sufferings continued with its work on the new framework document, Our faith in the future. The focus remained on life in Area Meetings. Friends gathered in ‘home groups’ to consider what Our faith in the future means in practical terms and how they might recognise achievement of the vision. They also discussed barriers that stop them becoming as they wish, and how these might be overcome. The clerks asked Friends: ‘What needs to be done within the Religious Society of Friends?’
Having discussed the situation in groups, a number of Friends felt called to speak to Sufferings. One said: ‘Speaking of barriers reminded me of the saying “if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans”. It is not about as we wish, but as we are led. We may be led somewhere we don’t expect. It’s about being faithful to that leading’.
His sentiments were echoed by another Friend. She explained how her Meetings had been without a Children’s Meeting for more than a decade. A member with a background in education felt very strongly led to run one. The Meeting testing her leading and decided to advertise that it had one. ‘We now have a vibrant Children’s Meeting’, she told Sufferings. ‘Trusting and following leadings can make things change.’
A Friend agreed. She said: ‘It’s really important that we work with what we have, follow the leadings we have, with the people we have.’
The Friend added: ‘In my opinion, Friends are very good at making each other feel guilty. It’s more important that the work gets done than that we have large numbers of people at Business Meetings. The focus should be on the worship that is the bedrock of our Meetings.’
A Friend, considering what needed to be done to encourage people to attend Business Meetings, suggested that Friends ‘get rid of Local Meetings for Business, “salami slice” the business and include it – ten minutes here and there – before notices at Meeting for Worship’. He added that he had made the suggestion to his home group with some trepidation, but had been encouraged to hear from fellow members that two of their Meetings are already doing this.
Treatment of new attenders was also a concern. One Friend spoke of ‘the tendency of some Meetings to assume that newcomers will pick up, by osmosis, what Quakers are about’. She added: ‘We can’t just sit back and let people come to us. We need to explain the faith that underpins our work.’
A Friend added: ‘Sometimes we use the phrase “listening to the will of God” and sometimes we shy away from it. I feel that for new people there is a gap in listening to the will of God. It’s not just about the individual. We need the community to discern the will of God. It’s a machine that has been proven to work.’
He stressed: ‘We need to go back to the essence of why we need Area Meetings. We are together because we are a bunch of human beings and we need each other.’
A Friend considered the question ‘What stops us becoming as we wish?’ She said: ‘The challenge is having the courage to change ourselves.’ She added that we need to think more widely ‘outside ourselves’, and that we ‘need to have a vision about not just the Religious Society of Friends but the future, and the world we’re moving into’.
