Extended Worship 2025

YIELDING TO THE POWER OF THE LIVING SEED

An Invitation To
A DAY OF EXTENDED WORSHIP
Saturday January 4, 2025, 9am-2:30pm

and an optional
Friday Evening Program with Marcelle Martin
BEING GATHERED BY THE SPIRIT IN WORSHIP
Friday January 3, 7:30-9:00pm

SCHEDULE
OVERVIEW
PROGRAM (FRIDAY EVE)
CONVENORS
LOGISTICS
REGISTRATION
(NOTE: It is necessary to register
if you plan to stay overnight.)

SCHEDULE

(OPTIONAL) FRIDAY SCHEDULE
5:30-7:00 p.m.    Light supper of soup and sandwiches
7:30-9:00 p.m.    Program: Being Gathered by the Spirit in Worship (see description below)

SATURDAY SCHEDULE
7:30 a.m.     Breakfast for those staying over Friday night
9:00             Tea, coffee, and light snacks will be available with an opportunity for quiet
                    conversation outside of the meeting room
9:30             Meeting for Worship
12:30           Brown Bag Lunch and time for a walk, relaxation, conversation, etc.
                   (Beverages will be provided.)
1:15             Reflections on the morning experience of extended worship
2:30 p.m.     Closing

OVERVIEW

In earlier times Friends would often worship for hours fully expectant and deeply patient for the Living Presence to do its work in the gathered body of Friends. These gathered experiences were core to Quaker convincement, personal transformation, and prophetic challenges to the cultural behaviors in the places where Quakers lived.

Modeled on a twenty-five-years of practice in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, we have been offering these opportunities for New England Yearly Meeting Friends to experience a full day of Quaker worship. In January we will be holding another meeting, once again at Woolman Hill, with an option to stay over on Friday night. We hope you will join us.

For the all-day worship, we will gather in the Woolman Hill Meetinghouse at 9:30 a.m. for three hours or so of expectant waiting worship. Three hours may sound like a long time, but Friends who have been practicing this kind of extended worship have often been surprised how quickly it seems to go by.  Friends are free to get up and move around, to lie down on the benches, to use the bathroom, even to take a walk outside and rejoin the worship as led.  Following the worship, we each eat our own brown bag lunch (beverages provided). After lunch, we either will return to worship or gather for some worship-sharing about our experiences of the morning.  We will close by 2:30 p.m.  Friends are welcome to come for the morning only, to stay for lunch, or to stay for the whole day.

Transformative experiences can happen when the Living Presence has adequate time to remove the spiritual cobwebs and to shine a Light on the deep calls that are beckoning us to change and to make the world a better place. It is God’s work to awaken people to God‘s wisdom, guidance, and love. These extended meetings for worship can provide a seedbed for God to do that awakening.  You can also read Marcelle Martin’s Pendle Hill Pamphlet, An Invitation to a Deeper Communion, which describes the beginnings of these extended worship experiences in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.

FRIDAY EVENING PROGRAM (7:30-9:00pm)

Marcelle Martin will facilitate an exploration of what happens in a gathered meeting and how we can best prepare ourselves to be gathered by the Spirit in an extended meeting for worship. We will consider the experiences of early Friends, look at the qualities of a gathered meeting named by Thomas Kelly, and share our own experiences. Divine guidance, healing, and spiritual power are available to those who are gathered together by God in waiting worship. In conversation, sharing, prayer, and worship we will prepare ourselves to receive these gifts.

Marcelle Martin is the author of OurLife is Love: the Quaker Spiritual Journey (Inner Light Books, 2016) and a member of Swarthmore Monthly Meeting (PA). She has led workshops at retreat centers and Quaker meetings across the United States, with a call to help nurture the spiritual vitality and radical faithfulness of Friends and Quakerism today.  She is the author of the Pendle Hill pamphlets Invitation to a Deeper Communion and Holding One Another in the Light. On her blog, A Whole Heart, she writes about spirituality today, taking inspiration from the past to help us find the courage to become all God has created us to be in our day. Visit her website at awholeheart.com.

CONVENORS

Jean Rosenberg, Middlebury Meeting, and Michael Wajda, Bennington Meeting, started these full-day extended meetings in May 2022 and are committed to moving them around the yearly meeting every 2-4 months as possible.

For questions about the extended worship portion, please contact Michael Wajda (mfwajda[at]gmail.com, 484-639-3356) or Jean Rosenberg (jrosenbe[at]middlebury.edu, 802-388-6453).

If your meeting would like to host one of these extended worship days in the future, please let one of the convenors know and one of them will be in touch with you.

Our vision is to strengthen Friends’ corporate yielding to
the Living Presence in all our meetings for worship and business
so that the Inward Teacher can fully do its work of abundant love and guidance.

We look forward to being with you in That Which Is Eternal. 

 

LOGISTICS

Saturday Worship

  • If you plan to come just for Saturday, it would be helpful to let us know, in case we need to make changes due to weather. Please come for worship whether you let us know or not!
  • Please remember to bring your own lunch if you plan to stay beyond the Saturday morning worship.

Friday Program and Overnight Accommodations

    • Please register if you plan to attend the Friday evening program and/or stay overnight, so that we can plan appropriately.
    • Friday evening program We will provide a simple soup and sandwich supper. Marcelle Martin will offer a 90-minute program exploring what happens in a gathered meeting (see details above).
    • Overnight Accommodations There will be overnight housing available. If you would like to stay at Woolman Hill for Friday and/or Saturday nights, please register at the link below.

 

REGISTRATION
See below for more information about registration, cost, meals, accommodations, and other logistics. Or you can proceed directly to REGISTER HERE. It is necessary to register if you plan to stay overnight.

COST & REGISTRATION
We are suggesting a sliding scale of $25-$75 per person per night for overnight accommodations (including breakfast); you may pay whatever level is right for you. For the Friday evening program and for the extended worship on Saturday, there is no set fee; we welcome donations in advance or at the event. Woolman Hill is committed to financial accessibility: please pay what fits in your personal budget (at whatever amount), you might consider encouraging your faith community to financially support your participation if that is appropriate, and let us know if you have additional questions related to fees. A deposit of half the anticipated cost is appreciated to hold an overnight space for the event unless otherwise arranged. If you need to cancel, the deposit can be applied to a future workshop within 18 months. Any balance is due at the beginning of the event.

ARRIVAL & DEPARTURE
For the Friday portion of the event, plan to arrive anytime after 4:00pm Friday afternoon; dinner will be starting at 5:30. On Saturday, fellowship before worship will begin at 9am and sharing will end by 2:30pm. Woolman Hill is centrally located in western Massachusetts, close to both I-91 and Route 2. For those  arriving by car, we will send directions prior to the event. Please let us know if you’d be interested in car-pooling. The nearest Amtrak train station is in Greenfield (MA), ten minutes drive away. Vermont Transit and Peter Pan bus lines also stop in Greenfield. Please contact us in advance to see if we can arrange a ride from these stations.

ROOM & BOARD
Our 19th-century farmhouse has hand-hewn beams and wide pine floors, with simple lodging (typically double occupancy) with shared bathrooms. The meetinghouse and the first floor of the main building are wheelchair accessible. Friday dinner will be a simple soup and sandwiches, and will include vegetarian options. Please let us know if you have any dietary restrictions. Part of the community building at each retreat includes the joyful sharing of meal chores and final clean-up.

WHAT TO BRING
Please bring your own toiletries, towels, and bedding (sleeping bag or sheets and blankets or comforter).  Pillows are provided. Be sure to bring seasonally appropriate clothes and comfortable indoor and outdoor footwear. You might also like to bring a flashlight, journal, art supplies, a book…
Please do NOT bring pets or candles.
We have limited internet access and cell phone reception. We encourage guests to consider how cell phone or computer use may detract from their experience of being fully present, here and now.

COVID PROTOCOLS
You can read Woolman Hill’s general Covid guidelines here. If on that weekend you have any symptoms of Covid, flu or a cold, please do not attend. Please contact us if you have questions.

We look forward to welcoming you to the hill!

Click here to REGISTER ON-LINE for this program.