Published: Dec. 3, 2021
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Greetings to Friends and Meetings throughout the West! We send you warm wishes, with the hope that you and yours are well, and finding new and sustaining ways to live in the Light.
Below you will find this year's queries for monthly meetings in Intermountain Yearly Meeting. We hope all Friends will find these queries fruitful to consider:
Referring again to Faith & Practice, it says on p. 53: "Community is shelter, a safe place to grow, an arena for action, caring, and love—powered by and united in the Light." A few paragraphs earlier, it says: "It is not possible to be a human being without being part of a community. We are born into a community, even if it is only ourselves and our mother. We grow up in a community, learning language, assimilating culture, and discovering the Spirit. As Friends, we know that the Spirit comes to us not only as individuals, not only as members of a community, but as the very foundation of community, moving a meeting at times as one person. The Spirit guides us when we worship in community and when we do business in community."
Queries on Community
How do you describe your worship community? Who does it include?
Where does your community end? Who do you exclude? Are your boundaries porous enough for people wanting in or out?
How, if at all, has your sense of Monthly Meeting or worship group community enlivened or challenged you in the last 18 months?
In the IMYM Faith & Practice, beginning on p. 77, membership is described as a
two-way street. "As members have responsibility toward the meeting, so has the meeting responsibility toward its members. Members are the immediate family of the Society, and although all those associated with the meeting fall under its loving care, it is for the membership that the meeting carries primary responsibility. . . Membership involves a willingness to attend meetings regularly, both those for worship and those for business; to give service through committees and otherwise as the way opens; and to share in financial responsibilities. Responsibility for the meeting and its decisions resides with and is ultimately retained by the members of the meeting."
Queries on Membership
How does that description, published in 2009, compare with your experience in your meeting today?
What distinctions do you see being made today between members and attenders? What purpose, if any, do you think membership serves in Monthly Meetings?
from Gale Toko-Ross and Valerie Ireland, Intermountain Yearly Meeting (12/2/2021)