2 May 2024 | by Rebecca Hardy
‘For a growing number of people, Meeting for Worship online has become, in every sense, their Quaker community.'
Quakers in North Wales have officially recognised their online worship group as a Local Meeting (LM). The North Wales Online Meeting is the first online Local Meeting in Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM).
Alistair Fuller, Quaker Life team leader, welcomed the news: ‘For a growing number of people, Meeting for Worship online has become, in every sense, their Quaker community; a place of love and belonging and deep spiritual connection. As Quakers across Britain explore new and emerging shapes of Quaker community and ways of belonging, it’s very exciting to see Friends in North Wales blazing a trail in this way.’
The decision was made after the online worship group continued to gather four years on since its inception during the first Covid lockdown. Quaker Ruth Moore Williams, clerk of the new Meeting, told the Friend that, after lockdown ended, ‘a different need had been found: the need to nurture this online community where we had experienced deep ministry, profound gathered stillness, so much love and fun’.
Another need had been discovered, she said. ‘Friends who were ill, physically or mentally, or less mobile than they had been… could still be part of a Quaker community and still give service to that community.’
Helen Oldridge, the AM’s local development worker, said, after the proposals were discussed: ‘It was a joy to see the love these Friends have for each other and for their worshipping group shining through as they worshipped together… As someone who worships primarily online myself at the Quaker Life Lighthouse Epilogue, I know how precious these online communities can be, and how vital they are likely to be for the future of Quakerism.’
The minute recognising the new Meeting described it as a ‘historic moment in the Religious Society of Friends. North Wales Online Meeting is the first and will surely not be the last.
‘Out of Covid, came a new way of worship. Out of the darkness, came the light. Out of necessity, came a lifeline, a blessing, a community who hold each other in laughter, light and love.’