In 2018 the State\nof our Society at Durham Monthly Meeting of Friends was healthy and thriving.\nWe gather at our old brick Meetinghouse from towns north, south, east and west\nfrom Durham, forming a community grounded in a vital worship life that that\nboth gives and receives strength from a range of other activities in the\nMeeting. We are still feeling our way,\nbut more confidently, in our second full year of proceeding without a paid\npastor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ministry and\nCounsel has accepted new responsibilities both for the worship life of the\nMeeting and for pastoral care of members and attenders. We love receiving messages from one another,\nsometimes in linked themes across weeks, and also as each individual is led. We\nalso have been much enriched by invited message-bringers from outside the\nmeeting. We continue to reserve 5th<\/sup>\nFirst Days in a month, when there is one one, for unprogrammed worship. We have been adjusting our regular schedule\nto accommodate expressed needs for more gathered silence during Meetings for\nWorship. <\/p>\n\n\n\n All of us are\nstill not completely comfortable proceeding without a pastor, but we are finding\nways to have various committees and individuals do what a pastor once did for\nus. An ad hoc committee appointed in\n2017 led a yearlong consideration of the issues in proceeding without a pastor. We asked ourselves, what can we do to\nstrengthen the Meeting? We came to focus\non three needs to which we need to be attentive: pastoral care, outreach and\ncoordination. Without a pastor, each of\nthese areas is an important function with which we may struggle if we do not\nfresh approaches. An adult Sunday school\nmeets regularly and we have been experimenting with prayer circles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Our membership\nnumbers have stayed relatively constant with a few passings and a roughly equal\nnumber of new members. Nearly every week\nwe have visitors. We average 30 to 40 in\nworship each week except in the summer when, with one and another of us\nscattered to other Maine pleasures, numbers are a bit lower. We meet for business regularly and appreciate\nan excellent monthly newsletter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Ministry Counsel\nhas taken on responsibility for pastoral care of members. Having this as a committee responsibility\nrather that mostly relying on a pastor has been an important challenge. We have developed an organized approach to\nseeing that we are attending to all expressed needs. Some of us are still learning to see a visit\nfrom a fellow member rather than a pastor as pastoral care. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We take delight in the presence of children\namong us and are grateful for the creativity and care of our Youth Minister. We provide childcare every Sunday, and\nchildren\u2019s programs on 1st<\/sup> and 3d Sundays. Our Christian Education Committee continues\nto be a source of vitality for the whole Meeting. It has developed an inter-generational\napproach to reaching out to families and provides spiritual nurture to youth\nthrough Godly Play and Young Friends seeking. \nCE also arranged a series of Game Nights for children of all ages and\nthese will continue. Through our budget\nand extra efforts we arranged support for several children to attend Friends\nCamp. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We aim to make a difference in this world guided\nby the Spirit, love and our understanding of scriptures. Our Peace and Social\nConcerns Committee has new members and new energies for a variety of\ninitiatives. The Kakamega Orphan Care\nCenter, Lisbon Area Christian Outreach\u2019s food bank, witnessing for peace at\nBath Iron Works, a quilting project to address gun violence, the American\nFriends Service Committee and Seeds of Peace camp all received our attention\nand support. Towards the end of the year, P&SC arranged a thought-provoking\nsocial justice film series. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Our Trustees have been faithfully attentive to\ncaring for our Meetinghouse, horse shed, parsonage burial grounds, and\nphone\/internet service. Each has needed\nand received attention. Our Finance\nCommittee and our Treasurer have the Meeting\u2019s financial house in good\norder. We vexed ourselves with\ndisagreements about whether and which clock to allow in the Meeting room but we\nappear to have found a solution. We\nshare the Meetinghouse regularly with a 12-step Group and a Native American\nfellowship group. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Outreach has been a question on our minds.\u00a0 How can we reach out beyond ourselves to bring our message and the delights of our community to others?\u00a0 We have taken this on as a challenge for all of us, as we turn to a new year.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n Approved by Monthly Meeting, March 17, 2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 2018 the State of our Society at Durham Monthly Meeting of Friends was healthy and thriving. We gather at our old brick Meetinghouse from towns north, south, east and west from Durham, forming a community grounded in a vital … Continue reading