Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting
January 2010 Newsletter
Note 1: Children are welcome in meeting for worship from 10:30 to 10:45, when they leave to attend First Day School.
Note 2: Community Lunches occur on the first First Day of the month from 12:00 - 1:00pm and are provided by the Hospitality Committee.
Note 3: In the gathering room, there is a book where you may write your joys and concerns to hold in the Light. On the second Wednesday of the month from 7:00 to 8:00 pm, there will be a special meeting for worship to focus on what was written.
There had been some talk of a special forum on 30 January to see a film. That presentation is NOT taking place.
Happy new year, Friends,
In this quiet week between holidays and snow storms, I've been reflecting on our past year. Chestnut Hill Meeting continues to be a loving and lively community, with about 75 people gathered each Sunday for worship from a total of 180 member and attender families. Our Worship and Ministry Committee oversees our worship, offers monthly worship sharing, and nurtures our vocal ministry. Our Care and Counsel Committee organizes care for families with illness or special need and provided clearness process for those applying for membership. Forum brings us stimulating programs each month to feed our brains. Hospitality serves two merry community lunches a month where we get to know each other better.
Our biggest, most ambitious project is planning and raising money for a new meetinghouse. Our building project committees have refined the design, prepared a budget, and are steadily visiting every family in meeting to discuss the new meetinghouse and ask for pledges for the capital campaign. We continue to struggle together to find unity on this ambitious project.
Our Religious Ed committees offer program for our children every Sunday and programs for adults including Quakerism 101, Mindfulness Meditation and Quaker Quest. Peace and Concerns brings us Fair Trade products, letter writing on legislation, and representation on myriad Quaker service projects. Our Property committee does the repairs, insulates the windows for winter, rakes all the leaves on monthly work days that are good community fun. Behind the scenes, Nominating, Finance and Communications bustle to keep our community operating smoothly with mostly volunteer staff. The more engaged we are in the work, the more deeply we feel connected to the community. In a few months, Nominating Committee will have a job fair where Friends can talk to our committees to see which might interest them.
2010 will be an exciting year in our Meeting!
Jean Warrington
Editor's note: Obviously we have passed the end of the year, but the basic message remains valid.
Friends, we are nearing the end of the year, when many people make their annual contributions to Chestnut Hill Meeting and other organizations. Normally, we receive about 60% of our contributions in November and December, which is about $40,000 of our current budget. Your check now will ease our concerns about meeting our new budget.
Friends often ask "how much should I give?" Based on the number of members and attenders contributing in the past, we need to receive an average of $868 per year from each member-contributor household, and an average of $338 from each attender-contributor household. We understand that there is a range of financial circumstances within our Meeting community. Please do not be embarrassed to give less than these amounts if your circumstances dictate. We hope that all Friends will participate in the financial life of the Meeting by making some contribution; even a small gift helps to reduce the average contribution that's needed.
Contribution envelopes are available in the office (ask Dan or Dona) and on the guest book table.
Also:
Saturday, 6 February, CHFM will host Harry and Lois Forrest, the PYM coordinators of Quaker Quest . This 9-3 workshop will engage us in exercises talking with each other about Quaker faith and practice in our own lives. The first part of Quaker Quest is “Inreach,” learning to speak and share with others in our meeting. The second part is Outreach to the wider world. Friends who missed the Forrests' presentation at October Forum are encouraged to visit this website.
On the web site, and in posters and leaflets advertising Quaker Quest sessions, the core group uses language attractive to contemporary seekers. Quakerism is referred to as “a spiritual path for our time” or “a spiritual path that is simple, radical, and contemporary.” The leaflets and the web site describe Quakerism in this way:
On Sunday, 3 January, 2010, immediately following the community lunch, the Coordinating Committee is presenting the second opportunity to hear a preview of the latest thinking by the Finance Committee about ways to pay for the new building. These matters will be discussed at the January meeting for business (17 January); attending this session allows Friends to hear the alternatives in advance of business meeting, so that they can ponder them at their leisure.
The Campaign Committee is pleased to report that its members have made 80 visits to meeting households, resulting in 70 gifts to the campaign. That works out to a participation rate of nearly 90%, and the committee hasn't even been to every household yet. This is a very encouraging rate of involvement from our community.
The Campaign Committee is also beginning to look more closely at foundation sources of funding for the building project. We understand from Friends at Live Oak Friends Meeting in Houston that all of their "outside" money that didn't come from individuals came from corporations or foundations with which someone in the Meeting had some sort of connection. What that means for you is that if you have such a connection (by virtue of working for an employer that has a philanthropic component, perhaps), or if you know of someone who does, please contact Diane Dunning, campaign manager, to pass on that information.
Peter Lems, AFSC's Program Director for Education and Advocacy for Iraq and Afghanistan, will speak about Afghanistan. Peter has visited Afghanistan several times, most recently in November and December 2009. Child care will be provided.
On Tuesday, January 12 at 7:30PM, Eileen Flanagan will give the first in a series of Pendle Hill lectures on dealing with transition. Eileen's talk, “Hot and Bothered in Thine Own Mind”, will focus on facing and working through our fears, especially during periods of change. Some Friends from Chestnut Hill may be carpooling to the Pendle Hill barn.
An intrepid band of breakfast eaters gathered at the meetinghouse on Sunday 20 December, in spite of a daunting snowstorm. Click to see a photo album of the festivities. Many of those present remarked on how pleasantly calm and peaceful the gathering was (but we still missed those of you who stayed at home).
When Sarah Whitman launched our year-long Heifer International fund-raiser, she announced a goal of $5,000. We raised about $4,500, which for a small meeting is a very impressive accomplishment. Thanks to all who participated in the various events and activities that contributed to this thread running through 2009.
Mary Lou Hurwitz says that she has started going to the local Haddonfield Presbyterian Church where she has found that the minister is spiritually challenging – in a good way! Lots of sermons about the Spirit coming into and out of us. Singing has become a ministry for Mary Lou, too. They have all sorts of social programs. She said, “The Presbyterian Church (in which I was raised before becoming a Friend) has grown up more than I have!” However, she doesn't want to become "excommunicated" from Quakers!
Signe Wilkinson reports that she had a delightful visit with Shelly McWhorter at The Manor (Abington and Stenton Avenues). Shelly used to come to Meeting regularly with Karen Cromley before Karen moved to Kendal, and she would love to come again. She uses a walker, and needs help with transportation. Friends who could help out should contact Signe for details.
January seems to be a month for movies.
Middle School Friends members Ellis and Thor Kimmell will be helping their film collector father Todd put on a film screening and chili dinner at Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting. MSF are especially welcome to come early and help cook the chili. Chili cookers should try to arrive 4:30 to 5. New MSF Coordinator Stephen Dotson will be captaining the veggie chili pot, next to the chili con carne pot, and both chilis will need helpers! The meal will be at 6, and show time will be at 7. We will be showing Elaine May's classic comedy A New Leaf, on 16mm film with a great old projector.
Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting and Chestnut Hill Monthly Meeting are co-sponsoring a viewing of the award-winning film Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North. The film chronicles the journey of 10 descendants from the largest slave-trading family in US history as they retrace the Triangle Trade and reflect on the legacy of slavery in the US today. The showing will be in the Rufus Jones Room of Friends Center (now on the first floor) on Saturday, January 23 at 1PM. After the film, there will be a discussion facilitated by CPMM clerk Barry Scott and including the film's executive producer and co-director, Jude Ray. We hope many will make this special opportunity.Quaker Quest presents our Quaker message as being "simple, radical and contemporary." It is simple in our practice of worship, our theology, and, in theory at least, in our organization and business methods. It is radical in its theology, in its assertion that we can all have a direct experience of the Divine, and that in our meetings for worship there can be a mystical communal experience of God.
But it is perhaps the contemporary aspect that we should most stress. We offer a way forward for those many people who are aware of the nudgings of the Divine but who, in the 21st century, are simply unable to accept the trappings of creed, theology, and ritual that have accrued to Christianity over the centuries. We can say to these people: "Come, join with us in seeking an understanding of the promptings of love and truth in our hearts. Find your own way of expressing it; grow along with us."
From the Friends Journal web site page on Quaker Quest