Sixth Month, 2011

To Friends everywhere:

Greetings in the name of Jesus! Three years ago, a small group of Friends and seekers from throughout Baltimore Yearly Meeting began gathering in Baltimore  City to explore a Christ-centered, experimental, healing worship.  Initially we worshipped monthly, then biweekly as the Seton Hill Worship Group.  We now meet weekly in the 1781 Old Town Meetinghouse at the corner of Aisquith and Fayette Streets in East Baltimore, where notable Baltimorean Friends Johns Hopkins , Elijah Tyson, and Moses Sheppard once worshipped.  We meet every First Day for pre-meeting programming at 5pm, followed by typically unprogrammed worship and fellowship at six o’clock.  

We are led to embrace diversity of all kinds. We are a convergence of Friends from various Quaker traditions as well as seekers from other backgrounds.  While we seek as a group to understand and nurture our relationship to Jesus Christ and the wider Christian fellowship, we make no attempt toward theological orthodoxy. At the same time we are led to seek unity with God’s will through the Light and Love of Christ, not only among each other, but also with the wider Religious Society of Friends and the Friends Church. In this common purpose, the variety of our experiences and perspectives helps us to know and cherish more keenly the promise of that Love, which is universal.  We hope to deepen and share this experience by providing a witness, spiritual hospitality, and community outreach to urban Baltimore. As we discern how to act on these leadings, we seek the care, nurture and accountability of Friends from various backgrounds.

As we strive to be faithful to the Leadings of Christ, much of our efforts in the past year have been on community building. Where do we fit as individuals in the meeting community? What are our resources?  What are our path, identity and connection with Friends?  We have wrestled for a time with stalled growth and an unbalanced gender ratio (at one point one woman to four men).  In the last year we have lost some members, mostly due to relocation.  We have also had to learn to ask for and offer forgiveness to each other. We have five regular attendees at this time.  We have been blessed with visitors from throughout Baltimore Yearly Meeting, North Carolina Yearly Meeting Conservative and from area churches. We are thankful that new comers have visited and explored Old Town as a spiritual community as of late. We hope that through affiliations we can build sustainable, nurturing relationships that will help us to grow as a meeting.

Our worship is often deep and filled with the Living Christ healing and ministering to and through us. We have been lifted to our feet in praise, in song and in vocal ministry. On our knees we have confessed, repented and prayed.  We have been humbled before one another in the Spirit, and in that humility we find God working in us, giving us the power to be faithful so that we may be transformed. We have grown deeply thankful for the worship and fellowship we share and our emerging leadings to ministry and Friends witness.  As we seek together to grow in the Spirit, we trust that the prayerful listening of other Friends will strengthen and deepen our discernment.  

We are examining the possibility of affiliation with Friends across the United States who, like us, are Christ-centered, convergent, accepting of homosexuality, progressive, and missional / outreach-oriented. Friends from Capitol Hill Worship Group have visited us and supported our worship on numerous occasions.  Our entire worship group traveled to DC in April to worship and establish a deeper relationship with a larger number of those Friends.  We are hopeful to build a relationship that will encourage Friends to realize, recognize and grow in their leadings and callings; additionally, we hope our relationship will result in our own growth and understanding of what it means to be faithful students and Friends of Jesus.

We are also looking to affiliate formally with a mature Monthly Meeting, who will connect us to the larger body of Friends and provide oversight.  The loving concern and the presence among us of Friends from the wider fellowship are important sources of sustenance and accountability for a small group like ours. We have visited a number of meetings in Chesapeake Quarter of Baltimore Yearly Meeting and have enjoyed the support and visits we receive from Friends from Patapsco and Stony Run meetings.  We have been especially impressed by Friends at Stony Run Friends Meeting (BYM) and  North Carolina Yearly Meeting (Conservative) who have visited us, and we them, and who have been persistent in pursuing a relationship with us.  We appreciate Stony Run Friends’ breadth of knowledge about our Religious Society, the opportunities to join in peace and justice activities, as well as the relationships we feel we are establishing with individual Friends there.  While we still seek a formal relationship with North Carolina Yearly Meeting, we feel clear to continue forward with Stony Run Meeting at this time, and will be asking them to help nurture our worship group through some formal means.

We are convicted in the Spirit of Christ, convinced of our need for each other and for Him, and are experiencing baptism as a slow burn. We hope to come forth from this baptism to do Spirit-led work in the name of Christ Jesus and as a part of radical Christianity. We invite and welcome all who are tender and open to worship with us in spirit, truth and in love.