The Seasons in the Life of a Meeting Thread Gathering

The Seasons in the Life of a Meeting: Being Attentive to Change and Responding with Care

Saturday, February 6th, 9:00am-3:00pm, VIRTUAL

Co-hosted with Haverford Monthly Meeting

Our foci in this thread gathering will be:

• Envisioning our meetings as dynamic entities constantly undergoing change.
• Hearing from meetings that have successfully met challenges in the life of the meeting.
• Considering together how we listen for Spirit and seek to work in unity with that Spirit as our meetings undergo change.
• Applying this to our own meetings in small group shares.

Please join us:

Friends with an interest in Governance, Ministry, Outreach, and Religious Education will find connection in this topic. We encourage meetings to identify several persons to attend to carry the day’s learning back to one’s home meeting.

Our meetings are living entities. As with any living thing, our faith community goes through different seasons. In the care of our meeting community, are we attentive gardeners who nurture those practices and aspects of spiritual community which are going well, and provide care to those parts that are needing attention? How are we actively supporting new generations of leadership? Do we notice the passing of seasons when, for example, our elders are unable to be as active as previously? Or when our young people pursue journeys that take them away from their home meetings?

Thread Schedule

• 9:15am Optional worship – led by Haverford Meeting
• 9:45am Introductions and Tech Review
• 10:00am Framing the Day: The Garden with Arlene Kelly, Central Philadelphia Meeting
• 10:45am Small groups
• 11:30am Regathering from Small Groups
• 12:00pm Break and Lunch (optional community lunch)
• 12:45pm Panel: Seasons in the Life of a Meeting
• 1:45pm Breakout groups with panelists
• 2:30pm Closing Worship
• 3:00pm Farewell

Panelists will share from their experiences of “Seasonal Changes:”

• Nurturing New Growth:  Engaging Youth in Meeting Life with Jay Dahlke and Parker Snowe, Providence Meeting
• Ensuring the Coherence of our Overall Plan:  Mentoring the Next Generation of Leadership and Passing the Torch with Inspira Williams, Haddonfield Meeting
• Ensuring each Plant has Found the Place in Which it can Flourish:  Integrating New Members Fully into the Life of the Meeting with Cassie Gafford, Central Philadelphia Meeting
• Doing the Pruning in our Garden: Addressing Necessary Changes in Meeting Structure with Melinda Wenner Bradley, West Chester Meeting

Registration is now closed. Please join us for the remaining two thread gatherings:

• Truth and Transformation in Community on February 27th
• Engagement and Fundraising on March 6th