STATE OF SOCIETY REPORT
March, 2024

Minneapolis Friends Meeting (MFM) holds two Meetings for worship each Sunday. One is unprogrammed and the other is semi-programmed. A mid-week Meeting for worship conducted online offers an additional opportunity for Friends to gather in the spirit. Each Meeting for worship meets different needs within the Meeting. Some people prefer more silence while others appreciate occasional music and a brief planned message or reading to guide their prayer and reflection.  After the Center for Disease Control revised masking recommendations, and with two well-attended threshing sessions, Meeting reached unity on making masks optional with space made available for those wishing to continue masking and agreed to resume monthly potlucks for additional fellowship together.  We continued to build and refine our hybrid system for worship. Integration of in-person worship along with online worship has gone well and is now the norm for all activities offered by MFM.  We recognize that this embrace of an online worship opportunity has created the challenge of training and coordinating additional volunteers from among us for each Sunday to serve as online hosts and problem solvers, ensuring seamless participation for all.  Attendance continues to grow with 50-60 worshipers regularly in attendance online or in person.

Members and attenders have voiced the feeling that they are grateful for the opportunity to be physically together again in the Meeting House, while also appreciating the fact that some among us who can’t attend in person on a given Sunday, can still be with us in worship and community online. There is a feeling of richness to the community interaction and a deep caring for each other. This is evident in a number of ways. MFM has a vibrant committee structure and several interest groups that meet outside the committee structure. A lively Mid-Morning program on Sundays offers opportunities for people to engage with members, attenders and presenters from the larger Quaker and wider communities on timely topics, and to participate in small group conversations on focused points of interest. Through an initiative of Care and Counsel, a member publicizes members and attenders’ birthdays, with their permission, so that people feel seen. Another member of the Meeting started a dance/movement interest group to help people learn to be comfortable in their bodies. There continue to be writing and book groups both for enjoyment and to deepen the Meeting’s understanding of Quaker theological thought and practice, as well as societal forces such as white privilege and unconscious bias and their impact on all of us.  Experiment with Light, Lectio Divina, and Spiritual Sharing groups under the care of Ministry and Counsel, offer opportunities for both fellowship and deepening our faith. Potlucks occur each First Sunday at the rise of semi-programmed Meeting to encourage fellowship and community.  Members of Welcoming and Outreach connect with new attenders, have an annual neighborhood ice cream social, and held a new “free muffin” sidewalk fundraiser. Its new “Fun With Friends” activities bring members and attenders together for picnics, museum outings and theater visits.

Ministry and Counsel has undertaken several efforts to deepen and strengthen the quality of worship including holding some unprogrammed Meetings during the second worship hour which is typically semi-programmed. Ministry and Counsel have focused on improving the quality of vocal ministry using quotes from a variety of Quaker sources in the weekly bulletin to reinforce the purpose for vocal ministry as a springboard to centering and entering worship from the silence. Ministry and Counsel recently instituted a plan to have several members share their centering processes as a planned message during semi-programmed Meeting. Ministry and Counsel members find this is deepening the shared silence during these Meetings and feel this is working to improve the quality of worship.

Two individuals have been accepted into or applied for membership in the past year.  Ministry and Counsel has instituted a mentorship option for attenders requesting membership to help educate attenders on the ways of Quaker worship and the workings of the Meeting. A seasoned Friend is invited to mentor the new attender and offer them resources and guidance, and answer questions as they move toward the clearness process.

Care and Counsel has pastoral care responsibilities for the Meeting and the Ministry and Counsel and Care and Counsel committee clerks connect well and regularly with the presiding clerk.

Care and Counsel facilitates Friends and attenders ministering to each other, “lifting one another up with a tender hand.”  The committee organizes rides, meals, visits, and other practical and emotional support for those experiencing the deep challenges of life.  They hold people in the Light and encourage others to do so.  Currently several Friends are facing, in themselves or their life partners, serious and/or terminal illnesses.  The committee concerns itself with them; and signals to the meeting that as our community ages, we must develop more resources for seniors and those nearing the end of life.

Participation in meetings for worship, care for one another, committee work, and other interest group activities create a strong sense of being part of a beloved community.

The Meeting has many activities that provide opportunities to engage in and reach out to the community at large. Every fifth Monday, people from the Meeting participate in Loaves and Fishes to serve dinner to people who are unhoused or who are in need. The Meeting chooses two organizations each year to give a financial gift to further their work. Occasionally, the Meeting brings in speakers from outside to educate and inform about issues of concern.  George Lakey, author and peace and social justice advocate, gave a talk on nonviolent peacemaking.  Meeting hosted a speaker from Jonathan House, a local shelter/refuge offering healing, supportive housing, and services for asylum-seekers. After a clearness process, one member of Meeting was recognized as having a leading to travel in the ministry to the Buffalo Star People whose mission is to promote healing and cultural lifeways of the Očhéthi Šakówin.   Members provided physical and financial assistance to build a home for an elder on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota.

Some members participate in Friends for a Non-violent World’s, (FNVW’s,) Alternatives to Violence program. The Meeting supports and helps to organize the FNVW Holiday Fair fundraiser.  Two members volunteer with the Friends Committee for National Legislation, (FNCL.) and many others support the organization through letter writing and financial giving. Some people attend Northern Yearly Meeting or Friends General Conference Gatherings. The Meeting provides financial, physical, and spiritual support to the Quaker Voluntary Service (QVS) program, working with members of Twin Cities Friends Meeting to care for the QVS Fellows and alumni. While there were no QVS fellows this past year, the Meeting looks forward to continuing this work in August with new fellows scheduled to arrive.

Many members or attenders volunteer in the outside community in areas of interest to them.  The Peace and Social Concerns Committee helps to increase our awareness of local work, and to extend the Meeting’s connection with other groups.

Reflecting its concern for stewardship of the environment, Meeting recently approved a proposal from the Property Committee for the installation of a solar array on the roof of the meetinghouse.

A few members or attenders within the Meeting have expressed concerns about having two or more Meetings for worship which means that the community as a whole doesn’t worship together except for the months between May and September when we transition to one Meeting for worship to accommodate for people’s desire to get outside and enjoy the day. Wrapped into this concern is an expressed feeling by some among us that there is not enough opportunity for fellowship and shared experience with the full Meeting.

There are a number of tensions that exist within the Meeting such as people who are Christ centered versus people who are more universalist, and people who see Meeting as a place for contemplative reflection versus those who wish the Meeting was more engaged in the broader world. Another tension is around vocal ministry. Some believe that a small number of people speak too much thereby not leaving space for others to speak, and some who believe they have a calling to speak and speak often.

A Conflict Soiree interest Group recently formed to explore how we as individuals engage in or avoid conflict and to consider how that might play out in our Meeting life.  They offered a mid-morning program session and may offer additional sessions in the future. The Conflict Soiree does this work in consultation with Ministry and Counsel which is grateful for their work.

A fear voiced by many is that the members and attenders want to do so much, and as is often the case, a small number of people do the lion’s share of the work. However, an estimated 80 percent of people who attend are involved in at least one committee. But the desire to do more taxes the energy of an aging Meeting community.

Minneapolis Friends Meeting yearns for additional younger adults and families to add the spiritual vitality of diverse generations and to offer more engagement geared for the younger adults and children currently in attendance. A Children and Families Coordinator has been hired to bring consistent energy and focus to build a program to meet the needs of families and children who come to Meeting now and in the future.

The complexity of running the Meeting through a committee structure sometimes weighs on people who are either coordinating or leading efforts in the Meeting. MFM is growing and people want to do more, but they don’t always understand the connections that have to be made when planning and scheduling events or creating new groups outside the committee structure within the Meeting. They may not have an understanding of the Meeting committee structure, and they may not know who to consult with when taking actions or making decisions.  As the Meeting grows and demands increase, it may be necessary to explore a more formalized business structure.

Among our hopes is that the Meeting will continue to seek ways to be more inclusive in providing accessibility to members with disabilities. An Ad hoc committee has formed to address these issues.

Although we are deeply concerned with suffering around the world, our meetings for worship remind us that the Light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.  In his vision, George Fox wrote: “I saw also that there was an ocean of darkness and death, but an infinite ocean of light and love, which flowed over the ocean of darkness. And in that also I saw the infinite love of God; “ It is in this ocean of Light and Love and its expression in the lives and activities of members and others around the world that Minneapolis Friends continue to find hope for the future.