I recently became a First Day teacher and became a part of our Religious Education Committee.
At our February Meeting for Business and other Committee Meetings this topic is a constant.
Over the past month more families with infants have attending. So a Friend suggested that we turn an unused room into a nursery. And everyone at meeting is all for it.
I've been attending my local Meeting for Worship most Sundays and although we are mostly 50+ there is a dad comes along some weeks with his toddler daughter. She chirrups away as she plays, but I sense in a subdued way, aware that *something* is special about all the grown-up sitting quietly. Initially I inwardly 'tutted' as this noise, but now I and other Friends in Meeting are accepting and experience our youngster's play noises as an addition to the stillness of waiting.
Hear, hear. When I was living in London for a while, it was very important to me to find a meeting with a regular children's meeting. Although I didn't have children to bring to meeting, a community with no under-18s felt like a community with a vital piece missing.
Yes! I also grew up as a child/teen Friend in the 1960s remembering MULTI generational picnics including the wisdom of sitting and listening to an 80 something elder. Now the emphasis on youth retreats, children programs, even YAFS, silo the generations and there is no one to listen to the fundamentals that were past down to us from weighty Friends of long ago. As an attempt to bridge this gap see this new Quaker website https://healingreflections.info/ and consider being part of the orchestra.
Thank you, Craig. I'm sharing this same message in my travels in the ministry here in the US. My capstone paper for seminary was "All Together Now -- Children in Quaker Worship" and I hope to publish it. These are our roots as Friends, and can be our future. We met in 2018 when I was in the UK and your family took my host and me on a hike and welcomed us into your home for a meal. The memory still warms me, and I am thankful for your writing!
This is a fair account. Each generation, of course, grows up in its own circumstances. In the USA during the Vietnam war, a whole generation of young Quakers had to work out their personal at understanding of pacifism in a few months. That might have taken years in more normal circumstances. I had to register for the draft. I wasn't a Quaker then, quite. The 'Alice's Restaurant' generation. Subsequent generations had a different experience.
Back home in the UK, later, neither of our children decided to become Quakers, but some of my fondest memories of that time are of sitting in Meeting with them when they were small. And some 50 years later our daughter still has a photo taken at a Meeting family picnic, with an Elder's large black toy rubber spider, She still uses that picture as her Facebook ID photo.
The moral I would draw is that times change and people change with them. So Meetings need to be ready to meet the challenge of each generation, as honestly and creatively as they can.
Hello Craig our LM used to have a childrens meeting. No longer. All AGE has delined in number, we rarely see children at all. We did have a young woman who came with her young son, very quietly sitting with his mother, after 15 minutes she was being forced out of the meeting. It was against mother wishes but she had to agree. It's along story to tell here. It has alienated the meeting so Friends are leaving, me included. Sad. We really don't make provision for children as Paul Parker in his presentation stated at the The Future of British Quakerism. I attended this as a representive for AM. I am at the top end of 70yrs as are most Friends, it's sad to see such outdate rules. It will in deed become a society for retired people.
I recently became a First Day teacher and became a part of our Religious Education Committee.
At our February Meeting for Business and other Committee Meetings this topic is a constant.
Over the past month more families with infants have attending. So a Friend suggested that we turn an unused room into a nursery. And everyone at meeting is all for it.
I've been attending my local Meeting for Worship most Sundays and although we are mostly 50+ there is a dad comes along some weeks with his toddler daughter. She chirrups away as she plays, but I sense in a subdued way, aware that *something* is special about all the grown-up sitting quietly. Initially I inwardly 'tutted' as this noise, but now I and other Friends in Meeting are accepting and experience our youngster's play noises as an addition to the stillness of waiting.
Hear, hear. When I was living in London for a while, it was very important to me to find a meeting with a regular children's meeting. Although I didn't have children to bring to meeting, a community with no under-18s felt like a community with a vital piece missing.
Yes! I also grew up as a child/teen Friend in the 1960s remembering MULTI generational picnics including the wisdom of sitting and listening to an 80 something elder. Now the emphasis on youth retreats, children programs, even YAFS, silo the generations and there is no one to listen to the fundamentals that were past down to us from weighty Friends of long ago. As an attempt to bridge this gap see this new Quaker website https://healingreflections.info/ and consider being part of the orchestra.
Thank you, Craig. I'm sharing this same message in my travels in the ministry here in the US. My capstone paper for seminary was "All Together Now -- Children in Quaker Worship" and I hope to publish it. These are our roots as Friends, and can be our future. We met in 2018 when I was in the UK and your family took my host and me on a hike and welcomed us into your home for a meal. The memory still warms me, and I am thankful for your writing!
Thanks Melinda, it’s good to hear from you again.
This is a fair account. Each generation, of course, grows up in its own circumstances. In the USA during the Vietnam war, a whole generation of young Quakers had to work out their personal at understanding of pacifism in a few months. That might have taken years in more normal circumstances. I had to register for the draft. I wasn't a Quaker then, quite. The 'Alice's Restaurant' generation. Subsequent generations had a different experience.
Back home in the UK, later, neither of our children decided to become Quakers, but some of my fondest memories of that time are of sitting in Meeting with them when they were small. And some 50 years later our daughter still has a photo taken at a Meeting family picnic, with an Elder's large black toy rubber spider, She still uses that picture as her Facebook ID photo.
The moral I would draw is that times change and people change with them. So Meetings need to be ready to meet the challenge of each generation, as honestly and creatively as they can.
So so true! We must be open to all ages for the growth of us all.
Hello Craig our LM used to have a childrens meeting. No longer. All AGE has delined in number, we rarely see children at all. We did have a young woman who came with her young son, very quietly sitting with his mother, after 15 minutes she was being forced out of the meeting. It was against mother wishes but she had to agree. It's along story to tell here. It has alienated the meeting so Friends are leaving, me included. Sad. We really don't make provision for children as Paul Parker in his presentation stated at the The Future of British Quakerism. I attended this as a representive for AM. I am at the top end of 70yrs as are most Friends, it's sad to see such outdate rules. It will in deed become a society for retired people.
Thanks Craig