Belonging is the Beginning
What would happen if we changed how we begin?
While I try to get caught up on reflections from my summer travels/experiences, sharing this piece and hoping you’ll let me know what you think about the ideas here — some may be a stretch!
Outreach, welcome, and inclusion in Quaker communities and in worship is one focus of my work. I’ve started preparing for a workshop in September, when Friends General Conference is hosting an online conference on outreach. The workshop title is, “Belonging is the Beginning,” and the first part of this post is includes a specific idea for the beginning of our community gatherings for worship, and wondering how a change might nurture the feeling (and experience) of belonging.
My reflections are grounded in quotes from two powerful pieces published eighteen and twenty years ago by Friends Journal. The quotes (at the beginning and end of this post) are taken out of the context of their full pieces, so if they pique your interest please follow the linked titles and read the full articles! Both continue to feel relevant in this time; the first one felt like a radical message when I encountered it —
“Perhaps introductions and announcements should begin before meeting for worship.”
- Tai Amri Spann-Ryan from “The Need for Radical Acceptance” (2006)
When I think about the experience of coming to Quaker worship for a seeker/visitor, I wonder about the newcomer’s impressions?
Based on the usual meeting experience, it’s not until we do introductions after worship that the visitor finally has a point of contact in the room, unless there was a greeter.
To the newcomer, people may seem to “arrive when they arrive” and there are places where this can be noisy and disruptive. There are meetings who have created practical responses to this, and have ways that latecomers enter worship at specific times, after it has begun.
What if we were all there on time, most of the time, because we began with fellowship beforehand? (and I write this as someone perpetually running late — I understand how it happens even with the best intentions to be on time)
In the absence of a greeter, it’s possible that a visitor has been entirely isolated in the experience of meeting up to the point where we go to coffee hour, and now they’re expected to mingle among people who often have other meeting business to find each other and discuss. How welcome do they feel, if no one has introduced themselves and checked in with them?
If we did fellowship and introductions before worship, would newcomers feel more welcomed into the experience?
I’ve read encouragements not to pressure newcomers — suggesting that it’s OK to let them “sneak out the back” until they get comfortable. Not sure I agree. I think this gets us off the hook of needing to reach out — and if they came to meeting aren’t they seeking connection? They could stay home if they wanted to meditate in silence. Let’s presume they came to find a community! We can be gentle with a hesitant, reserved, or shy visitor, but when someone leaves without having been introduced or greeted? I doubt they’ll be back.
How would this “flipped” model look for children and youth in the meeting?
In meetings where children leave the meeting room and go to their program after attending the first part of worship, they would have already been introduced and welcomed to meeting before even going to their own program where (I hope) it would happen again.
Wow — welcomed by the community before anything else. How would that impact a child or newcomer’s developing sense of belonging? It’s a powerful message.
In meetings where children have their program first, and then return for the last part of worship with the community, families would come for the introductions/fellowship and then children/youth and adults supporting their RE programs leave for those spaces during an already-happening transition time into worship. Children would later return to a settled body in worship. They would have started the morning in fellowship, feeling welcomed and part of the community before and during worship — and their own RE program time in between.
[“Sidebar” of something related, that I love: West Hills Friends Church in Portland, OR has already made a change like this at the beginning of their Godly Play program. The children begin with a time of sharing in community (“the feast,” in Godly Play parlance) before crossing the threshold into the story space. They share both food and joys and concerns with one another, nurturing their belonging in community together, before moving to their individual and communal response to a story.]
In another model, what would it feel like to end worship and hear announcements having already done introductions before worship?
To end the communal silence of worship with a general greeting, and begin announcements having already been introduced to the people sharing them — for visitors and newcomers, this could make a big difference.
Both models would also require a disciplined approach to announcements.
Whether we’re getting ready to enter worship and release children to their program (announcements before worship), or if we’ve already done introductions and worship (announcements after), announcements should be relevant to that morning, and short. (A Friend can dream!)
If there is enough happening in the meeting community (wonderful!) to share lengthy announcements, what other tools can be used? Encourage Friends to practice putting what they need to share in the written announcements. If your meeting has moved away from printed announcements, send out an email on the listserv and post it on the meeting’s Facebook group page. Let the announcement be to remind people to read what’s been sent, and invite them to sign up to receive what’s shared. Invite Friends to learn more about your cool thing after meeting, but don’t repeat the entirely of your announcement if it’s been shared already in other ways.
Endless announcements are not fair to children or their parents/caregivers. Because, and this is a real concern in my mind, parents and children leave after worship when announcements get too long — or even if they anticipate that it will be long. They not only miss out on what’s shared, but the unspoken message is: this space is for adults and their important business, not for you, kids, and not for people who are parents, by association. Anti-belonging.
I’ve visited meetings where, at the rise of worship ALL the children and many parents left before announcements because it was an established practice that they would be lengthy. A whole part of the community -- people who are parents, who have gifts to offer, and should be part of this conversation about the work and witness of the community — just aren’t there.
This second quote pulled from Tai Amri Spann-Ryan’s writing is also about belonging, from the perspective of an assumption that people want to find us. But in the beginning, there is invitation — and invitations provide a clear message of what to expect. This message speaks to what’s in my heart in this time of war, and violence on so many levels, when I am yearning for my faith community to extend a visible invitation to join us as a people who are for peace.
“Expecting people to just show up at our door is kind of like being a gifted poet but never telling anyone, yet being surprised when our expectations that people will ask us to share our work with them are unmet. If we want communities that are welcoming, more multicultural, and more just, we have to invite people.”
- from “The Gift of the House of the Peaceable Kin-dom” (2008)
What is the invitation to join Friends today? If we do not tell people, and show people, who we are, we cannot expect them to find us and join their voices with ours. The best intentions of welcome and inclusion should be built on naming and showing our commitment to justice and peace. For Friends, our testimonies are more than words but the lived intensions of our faith — how do we invite people into that faith, and its practice? What is our testimony to the world we belong in, from the communities we seek to invite others into?
Thank you for your thoughtful observations and suggestions -- very timely. The matter of how my meeting currently organizes Sunday mornings has recently risen among some individuals in the meeting and is being discussed in committees such as Worship and Ministry and Children and Youth Program. The topic has also come up in the decision to add a new committee for Welcome and Engagement this fall. There is a recognition that how our Sunday morning activities are organized has evolved over a long time and includes recent changes made during COVID. The hope is we will discuss this in groups that include members, attenders, parents, and newcomers -- everyone who is interested-- and discern what our meeting wants and what would work well for us at this time. Your post provides valuable perspective.