Third Haven Friends Meeting Worship and Ministry Committee 2022 Annual Report:
Worship and Ministry provides greeters for meeting for worship, discusses our experience of that worship and coordinates adult religious education.
Vocal ministry has been good this year and at times excellent. Meetings were quieter during the Spring but have seemed to be getting more vocal this Fall and Winter with increasing attendance. This is despite concerns about the Covid pandemic which has reduced attendance and created a technical barrier for some of our members and attenders. The Committee agrees that the hybrid model is not ideal but it does allow people to attend who otherwise could not. Meeting for Worship was not being held in person at the start of the year and we resumed hybrid meetings in February.
One of our most popular programs is the monthly sharing of spiritual journeys. This was previously organized by Mark Beck, who left us a full slate for last year prior to his death. Tom Corl coordinated this program in 2022. Harvey Zendt will do this in 2023. Many of the active members of the meeting have shared their journeys. If you have not then please consider doing so. Sharing your journey helps unite us in what is spiritually essential, and deciding what to share can be a very insightful process.
We had planned to start Trust Circles in the Fall with the help of Clinton and Kathryn Pettus, who designed this process for building community. We invited members of Asbury United Methodist Church to join us. They were awaiting a new pastor, and that delayed their response. They may be interested at a later date, but have declined to participate at this time. At that point the holiday season was approaching. Our intention is to start holding Trust Circles early in 2023.
The Committee updated and reprinted Third Haven's "Advice on Worship & Ministry" with the assistance of Marie Leonard. We are also in the process of reviewing and updating sections of the meeting’s web page under our area of responsibility. We purchased 45 copies of Faith and Practice.
The Committee is planning to coordinate four sessions to discuss the Gospels, possibly including Sarah Ruden's The Gospels: A New Translation, this Spring. We are discussing holding a Quakerism 101 religious education program, perhaps next Spring, and having a visiting speaker as way opens.
The Jungian Dream Group and the Journaling Group remain active. Guided meditations based on Rex Ambler's Experiment with Light were discontinued due to low participation.
Sandra Herbert moved to New England early in the year and continued participating in Worship and Ministry meetings, which are held on Zoom. She resigned from the committee in April. Kristina Herold has joined the committee.
All presently serving members of the committee will continue in 2023. Members are Tom Corl, Kristina Herold, Janet Kemp, Steve Meixner, Harvey Zendt and Jonathan Slocum, clerk.