Membership — in a Yearly Meeting?
July 31, 2018 § 6 Comments
A young adult f/Friend that I know and some of her friends (not sure how many of them have the capital F) are considering asking New York Yearly Meeting to give them membership. (Technically in my friend’s case, I suppose, she would be asking for a transfer of membership, since she’s already a member of a monthly meeting by birth.)
My initial reaction was negative. But then I began thinking about it and now I’m not so sure.
From the point of view of her monthly meeting, on the surface it looks like a loss. But in fact, they have already lost her. So that’s a “0”.
From the point of view of the yearly meeting, it would essentially be recording what is already a reality, that she treats the yearly meeting as a surrogate meeting already, and is quite active in its life. In addition, it would theoretically cement deeper relationships with the other young adult friends in her cohort and support an aspect of yearly meeting life that it’s always struggled with, the place and engagement of its young adults. So I’ll call that a “+1”.
On the other hand, the yearly meeting is ill equipped to provide her with most of the “services” that monthly meetings provide. This gets to the third part of the relationship, benefits and costs to the Friend herself. So far, she has apparently not yet felt the need for the monthly meeting services I am referring to, by which I mean:
- pastoral care, including the care of a meeting for marriage, the conduct of a memorial meeting when she dies, and conduct of a clearness committee for solving a personal problem;
- spiritual formation and support, including regular worship, regular religious education, and discernment and support for a leading or ministry; and finally,
- the unique fellowship one gets from the more intimate community life of a local meeting.
To be fair, the yearly meeting does dedicate some time at each of its sessions to memorialize deceased members who have been an important part of the life of the yearly meeting, so I bet she would get that; and anyway, she won’t be around to know. And the yearly meeting does enjoy truly deep fellowship—lots of Friends who know each other well and love each other well. This, I suspect, is the reason she thinks of the yearly meeting as her surrogate meeting. So that’s a “+1”.
Furthermore, the yearly meeting could take on many of these other roles. But its resources—especially its human resources—are already stretched almost to the breaking point. I imagine that it would decline to take them on, and rightly so, in my opinion. But apparently, this Friend does not want or need those things.
For my part, without meaningful pastoral care, regular worship, spiritual nurture, and a fellowship that goes deeper than just three annual meetings could provide, what does “membership” mean? All that’s left is Quaker identity and a sense of belonging to the unique spiritual community that is New York Yearly Meeting. To me, that’s a half-baked Quaker life.
On the other hand, all the renewal movements in Quaker history have been youth movements, and their innovations have been resisted by their elders every time, and usually wrong-headedly. Fox and his cohort were themselves young adults when they got started. So were the Friends who began experimenting with programmed worship. So were the Friends who gave birth to the liberal Quaker movement around the turn of the twentieth century.
Those were all resistance movements. Those young people were unsatisfied with the status quo, couldn’t get a meaningful response to their concerns from their elders, and took matters into their own hands.
So in my next post, I want to look more carefully at what today’s young adult Friends might find so unsatisfying, think about whether this membership in a yearly meeting solves the problem, and whether something else might. Now it’s extremely presumptuous for me to speak for them, so this will just be speculation on my part, and I expect I’ll be wrong about some of it. But maybe it will spark a conversation.
Related
Is Quakerism in Decline?In "sociology of Quakerism"
Teaching Quakerism to Our YouthIn "religious education"
Comments on PYM Annual SessionsWith 7 comments
§ 6 Responses to Membership — in a Yearly Meeting?
Evelyn Schmitz-Hertzberg
August 1, 2018 at 3:12 pmYF’s in Canada tried to have membership in Camp NeeKauNis. That did not fly. CYM however, might be an idea though it is already difficult to find people to serve on CYMJanaki
August 1, 2018 at 12:54 pmHave you spoken with young adult Friends in your yearly meeting? The YAFs of PYM wrote an 8-page minute of concern to the yearly meeting last year (that PYM had still not officially “received”) that might be a good starting place. I don’t get a sense of whether you’re reporting on a conversation already in progress or wanting to start a conversation; if the latter, I’d invite you to join the conversation we’ve been having.Steven Davison
August 1, 2018 at 4:46 pmI’m reporting on a conversation that I think is already taking place. I’m not sure that these young adult Friends have approached the yearly meeting yet—that yearly meeting is New York Yearly Meeting.I would love to see the minute from PhYM YAFs. I’m not really plugged in to PhYM yet.quiestistquaker
August 1, 2018 at 10:10 pmhttp://www.pym.org/pym-young-adult-friends-minute-concern/ is the URL for the PhYM YAF’s minute of concern from last year. I posted a bit of followup on my blog, quietistquaker.wordpress.com.I’ve heard a number of young adult Friends lament the ways in which we are marginalized in meetings, and that on the yearly meeting level is where we really experience beloved community. Sometimes there is capacity for pastoral care, etc; at times, there has been in PhYM, and having a dedicated coordinator really helps make that happen. When I was in Baltimore Yearly Meeting, there really wasn’t that capacity. It depends on the Friends. I know a number of YAFs who struggled to connect with a meeting but would have appreciated being able to be members of the YAF community itself. It’s interesting to me that another group that found themselves routinely marginalized in PhYM, Friends of color, have created a meeting; a number of people are members both of a PhYM meeting and of Ujima Friends Peace Center.
Carl Abbott, Portland, OR
August 1, 2018 at 10:55 amYM membership can be a point of attachment for individuals who are too mobile to sink roots deeply into a single monthly meeting. As one moves around in young adulthood, some local meetings resonate better than others, and YM affiliation can be an anchor in shifting seas.
Membership — in a Yearly Meeting?July 31, 2018 at 9:27 pm[…] Membership — in a Yearly Meeting? […]
