'Our Meeting has fully embraced the concept of blended worship.' Photo: courtesy of Stocksfield Meeting
‘Our online worship is disciplined, deep and much valued.’
Trying to figure out how to blend in-person and online worship? Michael Long tells us how Stocksfield Quakers are preparing
Stocksfield Meeting, part of Northumbria Area Meeting, sits on the A695 in the Tyne Valley and is on mainline bus and rail routes between Newcastle upon Tyne and Carlisle. A former Co-op dairy, then an office, the building was gifted to the established but homeless Stocksfield Quakers some forty years ago. The building has capacity for about forty-five in worship and has a well-resourced library/children’s room, kitchen, toilet and a garden to the rear. A small Meeting, it comprises twenty-nine members and attenders, just one of whom lives in Stocksfield, the remainder travelling in from nearby villages and Hexham town. A normal Sunday Meeting for Worship might attract up to twelve Friends. Pre-Covid the Meeting house hosted weekly ‘Friendly Fridays’ for isolated and elderly villagers, a monthly ‘Friends on Fridays’ – a social gathering with an invited speaker – and had three established weekly lettings to other community groups. There is a close relationship with Churches Together in Stocksfield.
