How Do Quaker Meetings Do Outreach and Welcome Newcomers? скачать в хорошем качестве

How Do Quaker Meetings Do Outreach and Welcome Newcomers?

This summer we traveled to New England Yearly Meeting and asked Quakers from all over the region: how does your meeting do outreach? How do you welcome newcomers? ►SUBSCRIBE for a new video every week! http://fdsj.nl/QS-Subscribe ⇒⇒Find out more about Quakers: Become a Friends Journal subscriber for only $28 http://fdsj.nl/FJ-Subscribe Learn more about the life and ministry of New England Quakers http://fdsj.nl/qs-neym Find out how Quakers are assisting military personnel across the US http://fdsj.nl/qs-quaker-house Learn about the rich diversity of Quakers worldwide http://fdsj.nl/qs-fwcc Work with Quakers for peace with justice http://fdsj.nl/qs-afsc ⇒⇒QuakerSpeak links & credits: Listen to the QuakerSpeak Podcast http://fdsj.nl/QS-Podcast Like us on Facebook   / quakerspeak   Filmed and edited by Jon Watts: http://jonwatts.com Music from this episode: http://jonwattsmusic.com ⇒⇒Transcript: Leslie Manning: It’s a practice among us. We treat hospitality as a sacred obligation. That doesn’t just include the food on the table, but it includes the welcome that’s in our hearts. How Do Quaker Meetings Do Outreach and Welcome Newcomers? Sue Rockwood: At Midcoast Meeting, I think we felt as a group that we had something very special and it was not something anyone was content to just practice with themselves in this small little group, and so they wanted to find a way to let their light shine. Angela Hopkins: I believe that welcoming and hospitality and fellowship are the responsibility of everybody in our community. We may have a committee that prepares the food, but we’re all responsible for welcoming newcomers. It’s a committee of everybody. Practicing Quaker Outreach Beth Collea: Quaker outreach is almost a reflexive response to the love and the joy that we have as Friends, and sort of a deep gratitude that bubbles up and says, “I want to share this with people!” Morgan Wilson: I feel like Framingham Friends Meeting has done a really good job of responding to a growing concern of outreach by taking on thinking about it in all the committees and the work of the community, and thinking about it not just as an objective to draw new people in, but thinking about ways that the community might need to change or be prepared for growth and new people coming in. Outreach Strategies Sue Rockwood: Some of the first things we did was to set up the infrastructure at the meeting to deal with the fact that we’re not listed in the yellow pages under “religious organization,” to open up a lobby room to create a rental brochure so that as people would come into the building, they could see its beautiful space, they could enjoy its literature… get to know us a little bit as what we are. Beth Collea: Wellesley Meeting has done a variety of things that have helped open the doors to newcomers. One is having low-threshold social events. We’ve found that some Friends who had sort of drifted away—for one reason or another—used those sort of “low voltage” social occasions to come back. Eric Palmieri: Well, one thing that the meeting does and has done for the past fifty some odd years is that we have an annual book fair… annual book sale. It’s not only an event in our community, but it’s an event for the entire Westport community. When you do something together in a faith community that services the wider community, I think it’s nearly impossible to not feel not only close to the wider community, but to your faith community. ___ The views expressed in this video are of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Friends Journal or its collaborators.