I'm kind of torn. I'm in a small, suburban U.S. meeting rising from the ashes (average attendance just before Covid was 2; we now have about 12). I'm going to go out on a limb to say that there's often a discouraging sameness and institutional inertia to a lot of meetings. One advantage to being a small, semi-start-up meeting is that we can be intentional about an identity and provide an alternative Quaker flavor. There's a relatively large population in our immediate area and there's no reason any of our nearby meetings couldn't be 500% larger. Maybe I'm naive but I don't think consolidation is necessarily needed.
There's also the participation factor. A Friend told me today about a visit to a meeting over the weekend with ~50 people. She said there were five messages. But here's the thing: my small meeting often has more messages every Sunday. The bigger the meeting the less average attenders speak. A lot of fast-growing churches break people down into small groups and that's essentially what our small meetings are.
So institutionally, I get the urge to consolidate where possible and not expend resources on hopeless causes. But at the same time, I wonder if our small meetings are all hopeless and not just missed opportunities that fresh effort could turn around. Our meeting has attracted a good number of younger attenders and other nearby ones have as well. I have a suspicion Friends might be coming back a little into fashion.
This is great to hear. I agree that not all small meetings are hopeless by any means, and some of them in the UK have started to turn around over the last couple of years. Friends seem to be coming back into fashion over here too...
Your observation of more messages in smaller meetings interests me. In the meetings I've attended (mostly in Britain), it seems that smaller meetings get into an assumption and a habit of being silent throughout, whereas larger meetings almost always have several spoken contributions of ministry. I wonder whether the difference is just that we have small sample sizes or whether it's something cultural, or other.
Our meeting is in an unusual position, as it essentially restarted in 2021. About 2/3rds of our regulars are new to Friends and relatively free from ideas about how we're supposed to do things. Our former clerk just set the expectation for vocal ministry as they started attending and it's stuck. I wrote more about that here: https://www.quakerranter.org/an-expected-miracle/
I definitely agree, although it can be difficult in largely rural areas with awkward geography and poor transport links - as we have in parts of Wales - sometimes it is OK to have smaller meetings to reflect that situation. We are already experimenting with being one single charity in Wales and the Marches, although it has been something of a tortuous process to merge everything. We do hope it will release the Spiritual energy of our AMs and LMs if they are freed from much of the routine governance, and enabled to focus on what Quakers really do - deep worship and listening to the Spirit, enabling social action as a result.
Thanks for this Erica. I agree that thriving meetings don't need to be large, and bigger meetings are not necessarily better than smaller ones. But all meetings need to welcome new people, or they are condemning themselves to ageing out and disappearing.
Thank you, Friend. While I am glad that the age-spread in BYM is widening and that younger people are joining, I have to return to the points of agreement I share with Benjamin Wood. I wonder whether some of the apparent decline is owing to the lack of a shared story and a perhaps unconscious rejection of the roots and branches, to borrow that phrase, and a fascination with the petals instead. I say an 'unconscious rejection', which might be better said as what I see as an inability of BYM to inhabit a shared Quaker experience that can be passed on so that each new generation need not reinvent the wheel and could refine it instead. The acceptance of the individual and the rejection of the shared is I think a key to the fear of disintegration of the Society and indeed is a way in which BYM may be more in tune with contemporary society/culture than the earlier generations of Friends were.
Thanks. I’m interested in how to do ‘outreach’ in a Quaker way. I love how we don’t promote ourselves but if we’re impossible to discover then of course we’ll disappear. Would love to hear people’s thoughts on this
Our future is the young children of families that are starting to come to meeting.
My Meeting asked what can we do to help out families that are new. We have started more outreach to new attendees. And the whole Meeting came together to create a nursery for new babies that are comming.
A big portion of the Meeting is aging, and our elders are embracing and mentoring the young people.
Thank you, Craig.
Yes! Courage! Deep worship, and committed action springing from and sustained by it.
I'm kind of torn. I'm in a small, suburban U.S. meeting rising from the ashes (average attendance just before Covid was 2; we now have about 12). I'm going to go out on a limb to say that there's often a discouraging sameness and institutional inertia to a lot of meetings. One advantage to being a small, semi-start-up meeting is that we can be intentional about an identity and provide an alternative Quaker flavor. There's a relatively large population in our immediate area and there's no reason any of our nearby meetings couldn't be 500% larger. Maybe I'm naive but I don't think consolidation is necessarily needed.
There's also the participation factor. A Friend told me today about a visit to a meeting over the weekend with ~50 people. She said there were five messages. But here's the thing: my small meeting often has more messages every Sunday. The bigger the meeting the less average attenders speak. A lot of fast-growing churches break people down into small groups and that's essentially what our small meetings are.
So institutionally, I get the urge to consolidate where possible and not expend resources on hopeless causes. But at the same time, I wonder if our small meetings are all hopeless and not just missed opportunities that fresh effort could turn around. Our meeting has attracted a good number of younger attenders and other nearby ones have as well. I have a suspicion Friends might be coming back a little into fashion.
This is great to hear. I agree that not all small meetings are hopeless by any means, and some of them in the UK have started to turn around over the last couple of years. Friends seem to be coming back into fashion over here too...
Your observation of more messages in smaller meetings interests me. In the meetings I've attended (mostly in Britain), it seems that smaller meetings get into an assumption and a habit of being silent throughout, whereas larger meetings almost always have several spoken contributions of ministry. I wonder whether the difference is just that we have small sample sizes or whether it's something cultural, or other.
Our meeting is in an unusual position, as it essentially restarted in 2021. About 2/3rds of our regulars are new to Friends and relatively free from ideas about how we're supposed to do things. Our former clerk just set the expectation for vocal ministry as they started attending and it's stuck. I wrote more about that here: https://www.quakerranter.org/an-expected-miracle/
Thanks for sharing your blog post, Martin: that's very interesting to me.
I definitely agree, although it can be difficult in largely rural areas with awkward geography and poor transport links - as we have in parts of Wales - sometimes it is OK to have smaller meetings to reflect that situation. We are already experimenting with being one single charity in Wales and the Marches, although it has been something of a tortuous process to merge everything. We do hope it will release the Spiritual energy of our AMs and LMs if they are freed from much of the routine governance, and enabled to focus on what Quakers really do - deep worship and listening to the Spirit, enabling social action as a result.
Thanks for this Erica. I agree that thriving meetings don't need to be large, and bigger meetings are not necessarily better than smaller ones. But all meetings need to welcome new people, or they are condemning themselves to ageing out and disappearing.
widespread nomination crisis!
Friend speaks my mind.
Thank you, Friend. While I am glad that the age-spread in BYM is widening and that younger people are joining, I have to return to the points of agreement I share with Benjamin Wood. I wonder whether some of the apparent decline is owing to the lack of a shared story and a perhaps unconscious rejection of the roots and branches, to borrow that phrase, and a fascination with the petals instead. I say an 'unconscious rejection', which might be better said as what I see as an inability of BYM to inhabit a shared Quaker experience that can be passed on so that each new generation need not reinvent the wheel and could refine it instead. The acceptance of the individual and the rejection of the shared is I think a key to the fear of disintegration of the Society and indeed is a way in which BYM may be more in tune with contemporary society/culture than the earlier generations of Friends were.
Thanks. I’m interested in how to do ‘outreach’ in a Quaker way. I love how we don’t promote ourselves but if we’re impossible to discover then of course we’ll disappear. Would love to hear people’s thoughts on this
Thank you for bringing up these issues.
Our future is the young children of families that are starting to come to meeting.
My Meeting asked what can we do to help out families that are new. We have started more outreach to new attendees. And the whole Meeting came together to create a nursery for new babies that are comming.
A big portion of the Meeting is aging, and our elders are embracing and mentoring the young people.
Thanks for sharing this Theresa. It's so encouraging that your meeting is welcoming and supporting young families in this way.
This is a useful and inspiring vision. Thank you!
Will be sharing it with Albuquerque Friends!
Thanks Richard, and it's great to see you here.