Scarsdale Friends Meeting

At Scarsdale Friends’ Meeting, it is our habit to prepare the state of the meeting report each year by asking members and attenders to respond to the queries sent to us by New York Yearly Meeting through a threshing session.  These answers form the basis for our report.  This year, reading the queries from Yearly Meeting, we were inspired to do something different:  to foster our sense of ministry within the meeting, while at the same time gathering material for the state of the meeting report.  We met together with the goals of identifying our own ministries or callings, and of naming the ways in which we receive ministry.  Ten people, of about thirty regular meeting attenders, attended this session.  People shared enthusiastically, first in pairs and then with the group as a whole. 

We agreed immediately that ministry is not limited to spoken ministry within meeting for worship.  Personal ministries put forward included both those within the meeting and those involving the larger community.  One friend visits a dear friend who is homebound.  Another, who is white, takes frequent walks and uses the barbershop in an all black neighborhood, and reports that now people have gotten to know him.  A college professor uses discussions about literature to provide a safe environment for discussing racism and other American issues, putting students into a position to “think deeply about their culture,” and uses committee meetings in the university to acquaint colleagues with Quaker process.  One friend feels that part of what she does is to give respect and attention to the people with whom she worships in prison, and related that in her work providing health care to high school students, a student said with surprise “You're actually listening to me.”  Another friend’s ministry has been to take pictures that can help the community remember events and recognize each other and to keep track of the history and customs of the meeting, as well as sharing her experience with Quaker process.  Other gifts or callings  identified included  questioning conventional expectations; making repairs in the meeting house as needed; organizing women’s group in the meeting; listening; taking care of meeting finances; bringing quilting classes to Bedford prison and elementary schools; care-giving to family and friends; problem-solving, moving the meeting forward, and negotiating solutions within meeting.  One person’s ministry, riding the bus to work instead of driving, came out of our meeting’s ‘low carbon’ group.  In addition to those put forward, we readily identify ministries carried out by those not attending the small session: One Friend works tirelessly at community-building in a variety of contexts, including fund-raising to bring annual gifts to homeless shelters and providing information to the community on a wide variety of necessary topics; others attend prison meetings regularly as part of our prison ministry. There was general agreement that carrying out these ministries is a source of joy.

We recognized the gift of being ministered to through messages in meeting; we know that the silence we share is a significant ministry as well. Many of us feel the gift of ministry in other ways.  In answer to the questions “Am I open to being ministered to?  Have I received ministry in and from this meeting?,” we had many answers.  Friends related experiences that had actually brought them into the meeting community.  Two people talked of having been warmly supported by calls, visits and food during personal or family sicknesses, and one person related that she had been first drawn to the meeting by the support given to the family when her daughter was ill. The same Friend described the immense value of learning Quaker process while serving on the renovations committee.  Our meeting provides ministry through social hour food, potluck meals, and occasional gatherings of various kinds.  One friend mentioned being grateful for realizing that people can love her “in spite of my warts.”  A recent addition to the ministries offered at our meeting is ongoing “Light Groups,” meditation groups using the Rex Ambler book Light to live by as a guide, a follow up on our Powell House retreat led by Marcelle Martin.

We all acknowledge that being present in meeting for worship allows the experience of being ministered to, whether there is verbal ministry offered or not. Another friend mentioned gratitude for the sense that the meeting as a whole is cared for by the people in the meeting: “Things just get done.”