Opportunities for Ministry

You might be thinking, dear reader, that this adventure has been a succession of ornithologial and cultural experiences. And indeed it has. But we are each here in New Zealand on Religious Worker visas. So where’s the beef, or, more appropriately, lamb? How are we being called to nurture the spiritual life of the Friends’ community?

The first motion has been to listen. We are hearing that an older generation is passing: one Friend told us she had attended 34 memorials in the last 3 years. We are hearing a yearning for more Friends in their 30s and 40s: in the yearly meeting minutes from 2016 a Kiwi Friend called them the “lost generation”. We are hearing that membership for the yearly meeting (which encompasses all of New Zealand) is declining and has dipped under 500 for the first time.

But we also hear (and see) opportunities to nurture and strengthen the spiritual life here. For example, Summer Gathering is recognized as a place where young people and families thrive, and great attention is paid to that. Here at Mt. Eden, we have attended two monthly potlucks for parents and families. The numbers are small, but the potential is there. And we hear a commitment to offering opportunities for individuals to deepen their spiritual lives.

Marsha and I are part of a 4-person facilitation team planning a 6-month Spiritual Nurture programme beginning in March. These programmes, which are offered to the full yearly meeting, have occurred several times in the past, but always on a 12-month schedule. The shortened format of this 2018 programme has meant consideration of how to hold and sustain a class that will only meet in full at the programme’s beginning and end. We are contemplating using video calls for frequent virtual gatherings between March and September. We have been meeting regularly as part of the facilitation team and have a sense that we are tilling the field well. Since one of our team members has been in the UK for the past 6 weeks, we have taken on much of the administration: preparing the brochure, getting it on NZ YM website, getting online registration up and running, and responding to inquiries.

Here in Northern Monthly Meeting (made up of 5 worship groups, ranging from Mt. Eden, with 25-35 people present each Sunday, to smaller worship groups that only meet twice a month) we have been listening and participating in discussions regarding the meaning of the words overseer and elder, and the spirit out of which these gifts arose. As happened in the US some years ago, the temptation is to abandon these terms, especially the word overseer. Because it is increasingly hard to recruit for these positions, there is also on the table a proposal to combine the committees responsible for oversight and eldership. We were invited to speak to a small group of about a dozen interested people on how pastoral care is undertaken in Durham and Chapel Hill MMs, and this led to a wonderfully alive discussion. We are listening to see how we are meant to continue to nurture these discussions, and to help expand the conversation about spiritual care of the meeting and its members to more people in the monthly meeting.

In our first two months, we have a sense of being primarily present to and nurturing this Mt. Eden worship group. We are aware, though, that our role as Resident Friends can also include visiting the smaller worship groups within the monthly meeting, and that our role with the Spiritual Nurture Programme could take us even farther afield among Kiwi Quakers. At the same time, we also recognize our desire to have travel time alone as a couple as a form of self-care.  We are listening to how to balance nurture of the local worship group, care of the Friends in the region, and care of self.

One answer to this question has been music, which is both care of self and care of the worship group. We invited Mt. Eden worshippers to join us in singing hymns before meeting on 2nd and 4th Sundays. We had a robust group on our first outing and a smaller group on our second and third. We have also been invited to be the “angelic choir” as part of the “Christmas Play” that the children’s program produces.  We will see where we go from there.

On November 19 we used music in a different way. We were the after-meeting programme, publicized as a “Get to Know Mike and Marsha” time. We were led to do this by story-telling. We put a pile of props in the midst of a circle of 30-40 Friends — prayer shawls, sheet music, a bunch of keys, teapot, our Couple Enrichment fish, the donation box, a Bible, a phone, a wrench. We then invited Friends to choose a prop and we then told life stories prompted by that prop. It was fun and worked well. It allowed us to demonstrate a Couple Enrichment dialogue, as well as to play a piano duet, among other things! (We are also scheduled to present a duet recital at a retirement centre in March.)

Last to note is that Spirit has been nudging me (Mike) to offer vocal ministry again. This has been a place of dryness for me for some years. I have been very aware over the decades that gifts are lifted up in different ways according to time and place. While the love and faithfulness is constant in response to God’s breath, the actual form of ministry can vary according to the needs of the community. So it is with this understanding that faithfulness in this meeting at Mt. Eden is requiring of me to be faithful to the nudges to give voice to God’s word.

We are so grateful to a number of Friends, both here and at home, who are supporting us through this year. We continue to listen.