WQM Value Proposition: Meeting Enrichment and Backbone

Now that centuries of change have shed many of the all-encompassing functions of “the Quarterly Meeting,” there remain two imperative roles only a broader, regional association such as ours can play. These are Meeting enrichment and institutional backbone.

Through Quarterly Meetings, Monthly Meetings are partnered with each other. The partnership is mutually beneficial because together we are more capable of accomplishing all that we need to thrive. The Quarterly Meeting actively pools collective resources in raising up smaller, struggling Meetings and enhancing larger, lively Meetings. The Quarterly Meeting doesn’t compete with the initiatives of Monthly Meetings, but seeks to broaden and deepen them. As the association of our regional community, Western Quarterly Meeting is the focal point through which local enrichment is possible.

The Quarterly Meeting is also the connection between Monthly Meetings and the larger Yearly Meeting. The Yearly Meeting associates over one hundred Monthly Meetings, which is an expansive collection. Our group of twelve communities (eleven Meetings and one worship group) is lost in the crowd. Thus we require an amplification of the Yearly Meeting’s institutional backbone through the Quarterly Meeting, where local concerns and needs are precisely attuned.  Institutional backbone means that when the basic management of the business of Monthly Meetings comes into a storm, an umbrella organization is there to hold back the rain. Institutional backbone means that when a local Quaker community faces conflict, struggles to deepen its spiritual formation, or confronts profound tragedy, there is a larger community to embrace it with love, wisdom, and guidance.

I would invite you to join us in the effort to enhance the life of this little corner of the Society of Friends, but you already have, just by worshipping on Sunday and by bringing potato salad to potluck. You already have just by financially supporting your Meeting, our Quarterly and Yearly Meetings. You already have because you serve on a committee at your Meeting or because you represent your Monthly Meeting at Quarterly or Yearly Meeting sessions. You enhance the life of the larger Society of Friends because you are connected by stories, history, love and relationships with all whom you know in your own and other meetings. Ultimately, indeed, we are one community, united by a collective spiritual search and the simple, powerful assertion that we belong to each other.