London Grove Monthly Meeting continues to be a vital and active meeting for Friends. The Spiritual lives of our members and attenders are supported by the testimony of many seasoned Friends, as well as the voices of our newer attenders. We come together each week in silence and feel a deep connection, whether we are present in the meeting room or on Zoom. Our Adult First Day School discussions help us make connections between Quaker faith and practice, ancient Bible teachings, the modern world, and our own individual spiritual journeys. We find solace in worshipping together as well as calls to action. Through monthly discussions of the queries we deepen our understanding of our own faith and how that faith fits into and contributes to the lives of those around us.
How has your meeting been changing?
After many years of diminishing attendance, we are fortunate to have welcomed a number of new families and individuals over the last few years. These friends are already contributing to the life of the meeting through committee work and active participation in our Adult First Day School programs.
A most welcome change comes in the form of our growing children’s program as more young families have joined us. They begin worship with the adults for the first quarter hour, then proceed to the Children’s First Day Program of Play and Learning where they enjoy an engaging curriculum, ensuring that their parents are able to participate in worship and adult First Day School. Two Friends have recently completed Faith and Play training, and all teachers regularly incorporate stories, hands-on learning, “wondering” questions, and creative activities. Topics include the life and teachings of Jesus, Quaker history, and Quaker values and testimonies.
Children have enjoyed a multi-week exploration of Harriet Tubman, as well as writing letters of love and support to older members of our meeting. We have recently implemented All Ages Worship once a month, during which the children practice sitting in silence as long as they are able before being offered quiet activities in the meeting room for the remainder of the hour. The children have formed a supportive community and look forward to being together. Upon the rise of meeting, the children re-enter and are invited to tell us what they have done, sometimes singing us a song they have learned.
An unexpected benefit of the COVID isolation is the permanent integration of Zoom into our Meeting lives. While it was awkward at first, it has ultimately led us into reaching more Friends. We found that it not only enabled regular attenders to join during COVID, but made it possible for members who had moved away, or who had physical limitations or temporary illnesses to remain involved. We made the decision to hold Meeting for Worship in a hybrid form, in order to extend these benefits.
Zoom has also made committee work fully attended and more efficient.
While our meeting is growing, we struggle to fill critically important roles. We have moved forward with two reshaping of our clerkships. Our Care and Membership Committee functions with three individuals sharing the clerking responsibilities through a rotating schedule. Our Meeting Clerkship has become a shared position with two individuals working together to best meet the responsibilities and needs of the meeting.
The “graying” of our population has meant that there are fewer people able to take on leadership positions. It takes time for new members to be ready to assume those roles, and as older members become less willing and able, we are finding gaps that the Nominating Committee is struggling to fill. One member initiated “Lighting Our Way”, a small group work and study series designed to help new members and attenders find their place in the meeting. We had hoped that this would strengthen their interest in leadership roles and affirm their role in our community. We recognize that this takes time. We hope to lead people to recognizing their “gifts” and understanding how those gifts could benefit them and our meeting.
The biggest physical change for us has been in the loss of several large trees, including our Penn Oak. This has prompted some huge emotional and financial challenges. We are fortunate to have very dedicated friends serving as trustees as well as a strong, dedicated Property Committee guiding us through the removal of trees, insurance challenges and extensive repairs to the buildings. We had begun some much needed repairs and improvements to our buildings and grounds before the trees came down, and now our physical campus is looking better than it has in years. We consider our stewardship of this property to be very important and are grateful for the dedication of these friends.
The Library Committee has been working hard to update our current collection and to create an online catalog that can be accessed through our website. The library is a resource not just for books, but also for archives of our history through the collecting, preserving and cataloging of papers, photographs and writings from meeting members. The committee has also established a “welcome room” where members can gather, socialize, and read. It is well used.
Where are you headed in the next few years?
We would like to be more engaged in the broader community. Our connection with Allen AME church continues with shared worship several times a year and some common projects. This relationship has led to the organization of an Interfaith Action Group, consisting of members of a variety of local faith groups who gather regularly to plan and implement community support actions. We meet for interfaith worship sharing, fellowship, and community outreach. Some of our activities have included shelter support, voter registration, migrant education program support, and researching ways and means to help those in our wider community who are at risk or in need.
We would like to be able to offer programs of interest to the broader community through the revival of our Forum. This will require work from our already stretched meeting, but it is something that we continue to keep in our sights as we wait for way to open and an opportunity to go forward.
The recent increase in membership of young families with children has given us the opportunity to implement ideas that we have developed through a “Growing the Meeting” initiative begun by a previous Clerk. The new Children’s First Day Program of Play and Learning is an excellent example of meeting members rising to meet an opportunity, and quickly developing an engaging program for our growing population of children.
We are hoping that the momentum will continue, and that in a few years we will have more friends ready to take on leadership roles. As older members mentor new arrivals, we hope to continue the cycle that has kept us a vital and engaged Quaker community for over 300 years.
Please share any triumphs or troubles you have had regarding the climate witness.
In response to PYM’s call, London Grove Meeting formed a Climate Change Working Group in 2021. Our activities centered on: Education, Leading by Example, and Advocacy. The group hosted book studies and guest speakers. We held several sessions, open to the entire meeting, that focused on ways we, both as a meeting and as individuals, might reduce our climate impact. In March of 2022, London Grove Meeting approved a minute challenging ourselves and our meeting to “address, mitigate, and reverse climate disaster.” By late 2022 the working group had coalesced around the prospect of installing solar panels sized to offset the meeting’s electricity use. In December of 2023, the meeting authorized an ad hoc committee to explore and develop a plan and present a recommendation. The ad hoc committee has now resolved technical issues, obtained cost estimates, concluded that the solar panels would be cost effective, and developed financing strategies. However, it has become clear that the federal financial support, on which this project critically depends, is
