March 28, 2021

MEETING SCHEDULE AND PROGRAM

TODAY

9:00 – 10:00 meeting for worship (unprogrammed): Keitha Herron

10:15 – 11:00 Prayer. Ministry and Counsel Committee will facilitate discussion and sharing around our understanding and practice of prayer.

11:15 – 12:15 meeting for worship (semi-programmed): no planned speaker; care of meeting, Dave Bostrom

Worship and mid-morning program in March: email office(Replace this parenthesis with the @ sign)minneapolisfriends.org by noon Friday for the link.

First day school for youth at 10:15: First day school is offered the first and third Sundays of the month. There is no programming today.

THINGS TO KNOW

Birthdays, as well as many other celebrations, don’t have to be solo affairs! Happy birthday to Nancy (April 9th,) Joey (April 11th,) John D (April 21st,) and Darlene (April 27th)! Let Friends acknowledge and celebrate you! Send the month and date of your birth, (no year necessary,) to Judith.

TODAY: Stay after second worship (or tune back in at 12:20) to make suggestions for the State of Society Report. Drafting and approving a State of Society Report offers the opportunity for self-reflection and honest assessment of how the meeting is doing. Done carefully, this process can help us grow in understanding and fellowship and deepen our spiritual life. A series of queries we would like to explore is attached to the bulletin. Any questions or comments, text or email Bill.

Do you have a message yearning to be offered at second hour worship? Ministry and Counsel Committee is inviting members and attenders who have a message pressing to be given, to contact Keitha or Bill so a second worship in April can be made available to you. Meeting for worship will be unprogrammed on those Sundays when a planned message or reading is not waiting to be given.

The end of the meeting’s fiscal year is March 31. Please submit any outstanding reimbursement requests to your committee clerk before the end of the fiscal year.

A Rosalie Wahl documentary, “Minnesota Experience: The Girl from Birch Creek” will be aired on Channel TPT 2 at 8PM tomorrow. Rosalie Wahl, the first woman MN State Supreme Court member, was an early member of Twin Cities Friends Meeting. Also available online at https://www.tpt.org/.

OPPORTUNITY TO CONNECT WITH MINNEAPOLIS MEETING FRIENDS

Mid-Morning Program next Sunday at 10:15: Minneapolis Meeting Supporting (or not) Friends. A panel will share when they made a specific request of the Meeting – help with a spiritual condition, food while sick, help moving furniture, a wish to start a group – and the outcome. After the panel there will be small groups to discuss how the Meeting could better support you.

Loaves and Fishes, TOMORROW: Join other metro-area Friends, the Ismaili Community and the Mayim Rabim congregation to provide a meal at Holy Rosary Church in S Mpls, 2424 – 18th Ave S. Prepare dinner (2-4:30); pack up and hand out the meals (4:45-6:30,) or clean up (5:30-7.) Fruit donations needed. Covid-19 has created more need and fewer volunteers (and fruit donations.) Email Sue to sign up for a shift to make sure there is sufficient space or to arrange to drop off fruit. Masks, gloves, and hats required. This remains a COVID risk. Sign up to come if you can!

Experience thirty minutes of worship sharing on a Quaker reading: 11:25AM Wed. Email Stephen for the link.

There is mid-week worship every Wed night, 7PM. There will be a brief reading at the beginning of worship on the first and third Weds. Email office(Replace this parenthesis with the @ sign)minneapolisfriends.org by noon Wednesday for the link.

An Introduction to Quakerism through the Testimonies, a series offered by the Welcoming and Outreach Committee, continues Wed night, March 31st, 8PM, following mid-week worship. Come explore Quaker faith through the testimonies: simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality, and stewardship. This Wed: Simplicity and Integrity. For everyone – newcomers and old-timers alike! Email office(Replace this parenthesis with the @ sign)minneapolisfriends.org by noon Wednesday for the link.

Want support as you get / stay involved in racial justice work? Starting Tues, April 13, 7PM, then every second Tues, there will be a zoom check-in about how things are going, particularly looking at how our whiteness or implicit bias is showing up in our lives and the racial justice work we are doing. We will work with some readings and body awareness exercises from My Grandmother’s Hands (Resmaa Menakem) and other sources from the American Friends Service Committee and Northern Yearly Meeting. Questions to Nettie or Jim L.

Quaker Voluntary Service Fellows have a program day twice a month. Area Friends willing to bring vegetarian lunch for the six Fellows are encouraged to sign up with Eli: eli(Replace this parenthesis with the @ sign)quakervoluntaryservice.org. Lunches needed on April 2, 16, and 30th

OPPORTUNITIES TO CONNECT WITH OTHER FRIENDS

Friends School of MN’s Plant Sale is gearing up; ordering online is available: https://www.friendsschoolplantsale.com/seeds-bulbs. Volunteers are needed already! More: https://mailchi.mp/a3ca331f2b01/fsm-april-20-2017-mission-moments-4904796 There are opportunities to support the supporters of the sale by bringing food for volunteers. Sign up: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/60b0f48a8a62ca4f49-food2

The next Northern Yearly Meeting Journal is coming! Send in reflections or stories about personal projects or efforts that your Meeting is involved with; poetry, insights, stories of life experiences, book reviews, letters to the editor; photos or drawings or creative expressions from your children! Deadline for submission April 2; send submissions or questions to Tom Darrow, NYM Journal Editor (nymjournal(Replace this parenthesis with the @ sign)gmail.com). Limit articles to 1500 words; preferably MS Word, single spaced. Past issues .

Friends for a NonViolent World is hosting a Bridging the Divide: Policing that Works for Everyone session, Tue, April 6th, 6:30-8PM: https://zoom.us/j/91677632808?pwd=RHYxQXE0WE5xT1V2U3RsM2dJOGxZUT09; ID: 916 7763 2808; Password: 199615. This work will follow the lead of the Twin Cities Black, Indigenous, and People of Color community.

Connect with American Friends Service Committee. This year’s American Friends Service Committee Corporation Meeting, April 11-15, is being held virtually so all Quakers who would like to join, learn from, and engage with AFSC staff may. The meeting starts with a program “Quakers and Abolition: Then and Now” on Sun, April 11 (7PM ET) co-sponsored by the Quaker Abolition Network and concludes with a plenary address by Nyle Fort, a minister, activist, and scholar, has worked in education, criminal justice, and youth development for over a decade in various capacities including the national director of Communities Against Militarized Police. For more about the schedule and links: www.afsc.org/corpprogram .

The Friends General Conference Gathering will be virtual and pay-as-led this year, June 27-July 3. This is a low-barrier opportunity to check out all or parts of the Gathering. More at: https://www.fgcquaker.org/connect/gathering. Workshops listed at: https://www.fgcquaker.org/connect/gathering/programs-and-events/workshops and include “White on White: Color-Brave Conversations,” “Where the Words Come From” (Christopher Sammond,) “Quakers Seeking Right Relationship with Indigenous Peoples,” “Living into a New Paradigm for Earth: Reciprocity,” “Enlarging the We: Living into a Testimony of Equality,” “All Together Now: Centering the Needs of Families,” “How to Grow a Monthly Meeting,” “Clerking with Joy and Confidence,” and more.

OFFICE HOURS

Carolyn VandenDolder, the Meeting Coordinator, will be in the office Wed – Fri afternoons. Phone messages checked daily; email checked W-F. Bulletin deadline, noon Thur. Bulletin items can be phoned in to the office (612-926-6159) or emailed (office(Replace this parenthesis with the @ sign)minneapolisfriends.org).

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Queries to be held as you consider suggestions for this year’s State of Society report. Small group sessions will be available at approximately 12:20pm on March 21, and 28. If you are unable to attend you may text your suggestions to Bill Hendricks, at 612.327.9069 or email him at Hendricks.quaker(Replace this parenthesis with the @ sign)gmail.com

The below is from Quaker Process for Friends on the Benches by Mathilda Navias. She borrowed from the Baltimore Yearly Meeting’s Faith and Practice which contains a particularly helpful list of things to consider when drafting a report.
The report should cover such matters as:
*What is the spiritual condition of the meeting – its strengths and failings?
* What was the nature of meetings for worship during the year, the quality of the silence and the content and quality of the spoken ministry?
* Meetings for business during the year: the range of concerns considered; attendance of members and implementation of the meeting’s decisions; was it in keeping with your understanding of Quaker practice?
* Were the contributions of Peace and Social Concerns, Religious Education, Ministry and Counsel, Care and Counsel, and other committees supported and uplifted the meeting?
* What is most needed to deepen the spiritual life of the meeting and to strengthen its witness in behalf of Friends testimonies to the world?
There are some common pitfalls meetings fall into in drafting a report:
– The report consists of a laundry list of activities
– Problems are glossed over or omitted
– The report is a collection of individual comments rather than a corporate statement.