YIELDING TO THE POWER OF THE LIVING SEED
An Invitation To
A DAY OF EXTENDED WORSHIP
SATURDAY JANUARY 6, 2024, 9am-2:30pm
Optional Friday Evening Program
for those staying over at Woolman Hill
“God alone is able to strengthen us to dig deep,
to remove all which lies between us and the safe foundation…”
John Woolman
SCHEDULE
OVERVIEW
CONVENORS
LOGISTICS
SCHEDULE
OPTIONAL FRIDAY SCHEDULE (For those staying overnight)
5:00-7:00 p.m. Light supper of soup and sandwiches
7:30-9:00 p.m. Program on Transformational Experiences in Meeting for Worship
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 begun these opportunities for NEYM Friends to experience a full day of Quaker worship. In January we will be holding our seventh such meeting, this time 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.
CONVENORS
Jean Rosenberg, Middlebury Meeting, and Michael Wajda, Bennington Meeting, are part of a small online extended worship group with nine other NEYM Friends that has been meeting now for more than three years. Michael and Jean 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.
LOGISTICS
- Please remember to bring your own lunch if you plan to stay beyond the morning worship.
- If you plan to come, it would be helpful to let us know, in case we need to make changes due to weather or Covid. See the email addresses below. Please come whether you let us know or not!
- Friday evening program Michael and Jean are planning to provide a simple soup and sandwich supper and a short optional Friday evening program focused on stories of transformative experiences in meeting for worship.
- Overnight Accommodations There will be limited overnight housing available for Friends coming from a distance. If you would like to make arrangements to stay at Woolman Hill for any of the weekend, you can register directly here – or if you have questions, contact the Woolman Hill office: 413-774-3431 or margaret@woolmanhill.org. We are suggesting a sliding scale of $25-$75 per person for overnight accommodations; payment can be made at the registration link above, or can be brought to the event. Please let Woolman Hill staff know your estimated arrival time, whether you wish to participate in the Friday evening program, and whether you will be staying Friday and/or Saturday night. Knowing these details will help us with our planning. Thank you!
- If your meeting would like to host one of these extended worship days in the future, please let one of the convenors know and we will be in touch with you.
- Regarding Covid: 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.
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.
To register and for questions, please contact Michael Wajda (mfwajda@gmail.com) (484-639-3356) or Jean Rosenberg (jrosenbe@middlebury.edu) (802-388-6453).
We look forward to being with you in That Which Is Eternal.