Category Archives: Committees

Advancement & Outreach, News

Quaker Quest Full-Day Workshop at Patapsco on 4/9

For our Meeting’s annual retreat, this year we will be doing the full day Quaker Quest workshop at Hebron House on Saturday, April 9, from 9am – 5pm (breakfast at 8am).  Trainers from Friends General Conference (FGC) will facilitate. In accordance with Quaker Quest guidelines, we’d be happy to welcome up to two participants each from other Meetings who may want to learn more about Quaker Quest.

Quaker Quest is a dynamic and transformative inreach and outreach process based on the experience that the Quaker way is a spiritual path for our time that is simple, radical, and contemporary. That process often leads to holding a series of public sessions to share the Quaker way with the broader community.  Still, Quaker Quest is much more than the public sessions: it is an experience that the whole meeting shares over many months.

While the workshop focuses on Quaker Quest, it explores outreach more broadly and  deepens the community in the process.  The workshop is intended to:

  • Build community.
  • Have folks get to know each other more deeply.
  • Consider what it is like to be a newcomer and how to include newcomers into the fabric of the community.
  • Share what Quaker Quest is all about.
  • Share what is involved in holding public sessions.
  • Everyone from the meeting is invited to, and hopefully will, attend.
  • Invite active older high school students or college students.
  • The workshop is valuable whether or not the meeting later discerns to do the public sessions.

For more information about Quaker Quest and the workshop, see FGC’s Quaker Quest website (from which this information is drawn).  If you’d like to join us for this workshop, please let us know using use our contact form.

Finances, Ministry & Care, Personal Assistance Fund, Process and Policies

Minute on Personal Assistance Fund (3/2010)

From the minutes of the meeting for worship with a concern for business, 3/7/2010, this minute supersedes the minute on a Personal Assistance Fund from 9/2000:

Minute on a Personal Assistance Fund
for Patapsco Friends Meeting

Purpose:

If a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; not withstanding ye give them not those things which are useful to the body; what doeth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.

James 2:15-17

A Personal Assistance Fund is established as part of the General Budget.

The Personal Assistance Committee is appointed to oversee disbursements from this fund to members and regular attenders as requested.

The committee that oversees this fund shall be available in a timely way to those asking for assistance who have bodily needs: food, clothing, shelter or medical needs which if not met quickly are likely to become urgent. Requests for aid should be made to the clerk of the committee.

Responsibilities of Personal Assistance Committee members and of those requesting aid:

Any two members of the Personal Assistance Committee have the authority to disperse up to 50% of the amount remaining in the Personal Assistance Fund at the time of the request. If more funds are needed, the requestor must meet with the Personal Assistance Committee.

Members of the committee should seek to discern the nature of the help being requested, the level of help being requested, the likely duration of the problem and the ability of the committee to give the requested aid, and the rightness of the request.

The committee should help the person requesting aid to develop a plan to address his/her needs.

Committee members should be prepared to follow up with the person requesting aid and to provide spiritual support.

The business of the committee shall be conducted in strict confidence. If, however, the committee and person requesting aid are clear the problem is not a bodily need, or goes beyond bodily need or that the need exceeds the resources of the Personal Assistance Fund, then, with the agreement of the person requesting aid, the committee may refer the problem to another committee or to the Meeting as a whole.

Repayment of disbursements from the fund:

Disbursements made from the fund shall be considered non-interest bearing loans. After a disbursement has been made, it shall be the responsibility of the committee and the person requesting aid to establish a plan for repayment, as appropriate. If it is appropriate to have a repayment plan, the plan should be one that the person requesting aid can in good faith agree to. Aid should not be dependent on the likelihood of repayment.

Committee Members:

The committee shall have 3 members, all of whom are regular attenders at Patapsco Friends Meeting. One member shall be appointed from and by the Ministry & Care Committee, one shall be the Treasurer of the Meeting and one shall be appointed by the Meeting through its nominating process. The term shall be for 2 years.

After approval by the Meeting of the members of the committee, it will meet to select a clerk, review its purpose and determine any other necessary business. All other meetings will be called.

The Committee shall report the amount of aid given and the number of people who have received aid to the Business Meeting at least once a year.

Approved on March 7, 2010

Adult Discussion and Study, Advancement & Outreach, Events

4/16/2006 – Discussion of “The Testimony of Integrity” by Wilmer Cooper

Prepared by Ken Stockbridge
Click here for printer ready version.

Excerpts from The Testimony of Integrity by Wilmer Cooper, Pendle Hill Pamphlet 296.

“Without a doubt one of the unique characteristics of the Religious Society of Friends is what we have called the Quaker testimonies.  We might refer to them as the Quaker equivalent of the creeds of the churches, though the intent of testimonies is primarily ethical rather than doctrinal.  The claim is that the testimonies grow out of our inward religious experience and are intended to give outward expression to the leading of the Spirit of God within…” p. 7 Continue reading 4/16/2006 – Discussion of “The Testimony of Integrity” by Wilmer Cooper →