WINTER 2003December 13, 2003
alem Quarter Worship & Ministry Committee met on December 12, 2003, at the home of Gloria and Bob Horvay, convening in worship at 7:30 pm. Individuals were present from Mickleton, Mullica Hill, and Woodbury Monthly Meetings.
Activity in the monthly meetings
Mickleton’s Ministry and Oversight Committee plans to have a session dedicated strictly to worship and ministry, in order to open participation to more interested Friends than just those appointed for the confidential matters of overseers. Three Friends are taking part in the current class of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s Spiritual Formation Program. Our discussion touched for a time on how wider participation of Salem Quarter Friends in future classes would benefit the Quarter.
Mullica Hill Friend Lois Dinshah recently co-led a workshop on “Using the Light” as part of a Friends Center program on Israeli-Palestinian relations. Based on that experience, Lois has been asked to conduct the workshop for her monthly meeting. If that goes well, she might offer the workshop to the Quarter.
Woodbury is planning a workshop for next Spring to address finding the Inward Light in others. Currently, they are in the midst of a year-end tradition to “Give the Meeting a Book,” in which members donate books — typically, but not necessarily, Quaker literature — to the meeting library.
Spiritual gifts program
We are not aware of movement on this item.
Clearness committee
Participants have been found for the clearness committee requested in September and approved at Quarterly Meeting. The committee has had some difficulties finding a date in common, but is scheduled to meet on December 16.
Annual retreat
We gave considerable attention to the value of this year’s Salem Quarter Retreat and the value of continuing the practice in 2004. We believe the experience is important to both the individuals who participate and to their meeting communities. We encourage the Quarter to continue the retreat; however, there are some concerns:
Vital to the success of the retreat is the work of the planning committee, and vital to the committee’s success is a clerk who can see the work through. We considered a few people who might do well as planning committee clerk, and directed our clerk to seek their service. Meanwhile, we ask Friends willing to participate in the committee to make themselves known to Mario Cavallini or Salem Quarter Coordinator Phil Anthony.
We feel it important to revive participation by children and young families. Perhaps moving the location of the retreat from our custom of the Burlington Meetinghouse Conference Center to a family activity facility such as Camp Darkwaters would help. Elizabeth Thomas agreed to check into cost and availability of Camp Darkwaters. We will need such information quickly, since only one weekend remains open at Burlington, and we cannot expect Burlington to hold the weekend open indefinitely while we deliberate. If Camp Darkwaters information is not available for the December Quarterly Meeting for Business, then the Quarter may need either to decide the matter on incomplete information, or to delegate the decision to a person or persons who can gather needed data within a few days.
We also gave deep attention to a set of queries on the topic of simplicity that had been created in the course of this Summer’s retreat. We decided to make only slight editorial adjustments, in order to hold close to the sense of the retreat participants. We believe the queries will be of value to Friends and Meetings of the Quarter. To that end, copies of the queries will be distributed at Quarterly Meeting, and we will offer them for publication in Salem Quarter News.
Extended meeting for worship
Seaville Monthly Meeting has agreed to welcome Friends for an extended meeting for worship on a Saturday in the Spring. After some discussion, the date of April 3 seems best suited. As considered in our September meeting, the session would start with doughnuts and coffee at 9 am. While a prompt start would be worthwhile, we encourage Friends to arrive and participate as they are able. At midday, we would break for brown-bag lunch, and then resume worship into the afternoon. This would be corporate worship, not a collective silent individual retreat; however, Friends would be at liberty to take breaks and seek solitude as they need it.
Signing for hearing-impaired people
Quarter Clerk Michael Gibson asked for consideration of a recent message from Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, expressing an intent to offer American Sign Language interpretation at events under the care of Yearly Meeting. We were not asked to make any decisions, but simply to open a discussion. Among the points discussed:
Effective outreach to the hearing impaired — or indeed to any minority — requires more dedication than reacting if an individual happens to present their need. Conversely, there are many more hypothetical needs than we have the means to address.
A useful first step may be to ask monthly meetings whether they have members or attenders who would benefit from ASL services, or people capable of offering ASL interpretation.
Such inventory would be only a first step. This question calls for discernment of how we are led, as much as assessment of how we are needed or able.
We concluded in worship at about 10:30 pm, to refreshments and consideration of books available for purchase from the FGC bookstore, thanks to the labors of Bob Horvay. Worship and Ministry intends to meet again on March 12, 2004, the Friday evening before Quarterly Meeting, and we welcome participation from all monthly meetings of Salem Quarter.
For the Committee,
Mario Cavallini, ClerkRETURN TO TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Wednesday, February 18, 2004 at 08:19 AM
