Minneapolis Friends Meeting State of Society Report
April 1, 2018 – March 31, 2019

Minneapolis Friends Meeting continues to be in transition since the retirement of our Director of Ministry after over 39 years of service to the Meeting. We are working hard together to discern our ongoing structure and process. However, during this time many members and our committees have stepped in to fill the considerable gap left by the change. We have been focusing on strengthening and maintaining consistent and spirit led pastoral care for our community, ongoing religious education for our children and for adults, and a vibrant and deep worship environment. We are nourished and feel the joy of working together to support each other and our Meeting.

As a community we have had to endure and support each other through the loss of some of our longest standing Elders due to death or reduced capacity.

However, we have also been blessed with several new attenders and members, many who come from other meetings, who have contributed new spiritual energy and fresh ideas to our community. Newer families have also blessed us with a vibrant and well attended First Day school after several years of lower numbers of young people. We are grateful to the dedicated Friends who work with our young people every week. Our religious education program also includes a very well attended Mid-Morning program on most First Days where we’ve learned about each other, Quaker history and practice, and Quaker activities in the wider world.

We are very excited and enriched by the new Quaker Voluntary Service house recently opened in the Twin Cities. The development and initiation of the program has offered an opportunity for our area meetings to work together in building something wonderful for our community and for the young people who come to live in community do good work.

Earlier this year we hosted Paul Buckley who spent the weekend ministering to us and sharing about his book Primitive Quakerism Revived and his translation of William Penn’s Primitive Christianity Revived. Over a weekend Friends from our area and even as far away as Milwaukee spent time learning together and sharing deeply about our own faith and experiences in Quaker meeting. This was an opportunity to grow and deepen as a faith community. We are very thankful to Paul and to the folks who planned and realized the weekend.

Several Experiment With Light groups have been meeting regularly over the past couple of years. This practice has been growing in our Meeting and has served to deepen the sense of the Light for our whole meeting, not just those who are participating directly. This, along with our Mid Morning Programs covering discernment, vocal ministry, the “Four Doors to Meeting for Worship” and other topics have served to strengthen our individual spirits and our worship community.

Our Meetings for Worship and Meetings for Worship With Attention To Business have been well attended and nourishing. We continue to hold both Unprogrammed and Semi Programmed (with music and a planned speaker from our community )meetings. During the summer we hold one meeting each First Day alternating between the manners of worship. It is good to have us all together during these months. We are continuing to strengthen the ties of our community through our monthly potlucks, Friendly Meals, book groups, Peace and Social Concerns movie nights, our fall get together, and other community events.

We continue to bring the Light of the loving God into the world as a community and as individuals through our service to the earth, our focus on peace and justice, involvement in Quaker and other service organizations, partnerships with Mayim Rabim and other faith communities, and through our loving care of each other and those we come in contact with.

Looking forward, many of the challenges we face remain the same as if we glance back: welcoming new-comers, particularly young adults and young families; integrating new attenders into the life of the Meeting; nurturing and encouraging spiritual growth and understanding of Quaker faith and practice; cultivating a new generation of leadership; supporting and maintaining a vital program for youth; responsible stewardship and care of the meetinghouse.