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The Biggest Most Vibranty Most Outreachiest Program Ever

Sep 21st, 2010
by .

In my twenty-plus years with Friends, I’ve seen Big Out­reach Projects come and go. I’m afraid I can’t even remem­ber most of the Great Names they had. Is there a repos­i­tory for their Bold Mis­sion State­ments? Videos from their Impor­tant Con­fer­ences? You’d think with all this talk of Com­mu­nity and Vibrance and Roots and New­ness that the Soci­ety of Friends would be bust­ing out at the seams. Well, I thought I’d get into the act, throw my hat in the ring if you will and give you the Biggest Newiest Out­reachi­est Pro­gram Ever:

When a new­comer shows up at meet­ing, invite them out for lunch.

I’ll leave the details up to you. Your place, a local restau­rant, sand­wiches at the meet­ing­house, doesn’t mat­ter. Total new­comer, some­one from another meet­ing, a old reg­u­lar who hasn’t shown up in awhile, doesn’t mat­ter. When some­one you didn’t expect shows up for wor­ship on First Day Morn­ing, say hi and invite them to a meal. What’s that? You missed it?

When a new­comer shows up at meet­ing, invite them out for lunch.

I warn you, you might be ven­tur­ing into Quaker Uncom­fort Zones:

  • You’ll have to talk with some­one you didn’t meet decades ago (GASP!)
  • You’ll have to prac­tice clearly talk­ing about your faith, not just the how’s and the who’s but the why’s (AHHHH!)
  • You’ll have learn what the cur­rent gen­er­a­tion of seek­ers are actu­ally seek­ing (UH-OH!)

Now I real­ize this pro­posal is HERESY! It’s a com­plete vio­la­tion of QUAKER PRINCIPLES! Cost of the pro­gram: noth­ing. Num­ber of com­mit­tees needed to over­see it: zero. Mis­sion state­ment: twelve words, already writ­ten (Review with me: “When a new­comer shows up at meet­ing, invite them out for lunch”). Plan­ning con­sul­ta­tions: none. Amount of air­fare trans­port­ing Impor­tant Friends hither and yon: zero. Pre­sen­ta­tions at yearly meet­ings: none. Staff sup­port: none. Grant pro­pos­als: none. Oh but don’t get me wrong, THERE ARE HUGE COSTS! You might have to sched­ule that com­mit­tee meet­ing for another day!!! You might have to have that Impor­tant Con­ver­sa­tion with a fel­low com­mit­tee mem­ber by PHONE later in the after­noon!!! You might have one hour less on First Day for all of the Crit­i­cally Impor­tant Things You Have to Do. Your Face­book friends won’t be par­tic­u­larly impressed when you update to say you had lunch with some­one they’ve NEVER EVEN HEARD OF!

Ran­dom cap­i­tal­iza­tion aside for a moment, I real­ize that there are Friends with a gift of hos­pi­tal­ity. And some of us can come out of our shells if we make a bit of effort (it’s not the most nat­ural thing for me either). I’ve seen a few meet­ings and yearly meet­ings that seem to have a tal­ent for hos­pi­tal­ity so I know it’s pos­si­ble. But I visit a lot of meet­ings these days and have to report that I rarely have the oppor­tu­nity for more than ten min­utes of idle chit-chat after wor­ship before everyone’s jumped in their cars. I’ve seen Friends so involved with committee-work that they don’t notice new peo­ple or notice when reg­u­lars stop com­ing. New­com­ers typ­i­cally look around with a mix of hope­ful­ness and anx­i­ety at the rise of wor­ship. Hand­shakes and intro­duc­tions are help­ful; wel­come tables, brochure racks and name tags are all very good. But depend­ing on per­son­al­ity, shy vis­i­tors will only stick around for a few min­utes if no one engages them any fur­ther. Like all of us, they’re look­ing for a per­sonal con­nec­tion and want more than just a few ques­tions answered Wikipedia-style. Not every­one will take us up on our offer of lunch but they’ll remem­ber we offered and will be that much more likely to return a sec­ond time.

So, one more time, in case missed it, the most out­reachi­est pro­gram ever:

When a new­comer shows up at meet­ing, invite them out for lunch.

Now go off and out­reach. I hear the blue­berry waf­fles down the street are really yummy.

Posted in: Miscellany, Quaker.
Tagged: · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·

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  • http://twitter.com/bitb Scott Wells

    Surely, that many excla­ma­tion points isn’t Plain. Or per­haps that’s the Ranter part.

    • http://www.martinkelley.com Mar­tin Kelley

      The ran­dom cap­i­tal­iza­tion is a bit tra­di­tional, at least it’s pretty com­mon
      in the books I tend to read.

  • Micah Bales

    Bril­liant.

  • Betsy B

    I am a lit­tle uncom­fort­able with this whole address­ing the issue cou­pled with poten­tial spir­i­tual inti­macy through my local meeting.

  • http://www.martinkelley.com Mar­tin Kelley

    Per­haps I should men­tion that I’ve seen this work. In the early 90s I was a con­vinced Friend with­out much of a com­mu­nity. I would occa­sion­ally visit Cen­tral Philadel­phia MM but never con­nect in any mean­ing­ful way. There were few if any 20-somethings (“YAFs” in Quak­erese) in atten­dance. One day two friends decided they’d go every week and have lunch after­wards. A week or two later a third Friend started join­ing them and a week or two later I stum­bled on the three­some. We kept con­geal­ing like this till we had up to two dozen peo­ple a week going out to lunch after meeting–many of them YAFs, but not at all exclu­sively so. Over the next few years, the wider CPMM young adult scene prob­a­bly included 70–100 peo­ple. All of this was unplanned, just a few peo­ple being friendly (and prob­a­bly fol­low­ing lead­ings). I’ve seen and heard of other lively social scenes that came together in other cities.

  • Grellet06

    “Your Face­book friends won’t be par­tic­u­larly impressed when you update to say you had lunch with some­one they’ve NEVER EVEN HEARD OF!”

    I’m not on Face­book to impress any­one. Other than that, great idea.

  • Trishc

    Hav­ing vis­ited a new meet­ing on a trip to cousins in Mary­land, I was flab­ber­gasted when despite intro­duc­ing myself dur­ing notices, almost no one spoke to me after meet­ing — they were in too much of a hurry to depart. It was the strangest ‘after meet­ing’ I have ever expe­ri­enced in 30+ years of Quak­erism. Even more so as I was com­ing from the UK to the US. I am not impor­tant as such but if they treat every­one that way … Quak­erism will be on the way out.

    • http://www.martinkelley.com Mar­tin Kelley

      Hi Trish, thanks for drop­ping by. Unfor­tu­nately I can think of a num­ber of local meet­ings which are skirt­ing the edge of via­bil­ity: drop­ping atten­dance, aging mem­ber­ship, lit­tle in the way of com­mu­nity on First Day that might attract new­com­ers. I think it’s all but inevitable that many of them will be clos­ing over the next fif­teen years. I take no joy in this. A cer­tain type of East Coast small town Quak­erism is wind­ing down.

    • Annalee

      I cringe because for all I know, you vis­ited *my* Meet­ing. I con­stantly feel like I’m not doing enough to wel­come our new­com­ers and vis­i­tors (in my case though, it’s shy­ness, not Impor­tant Com­mit­tee Business).

      We meet in a down­town area near sev­eral restau­rants though, so there is fre­quently a mass lunch out­ing after Meet­ing. I think I’m going to try to make a bet­ter effort to make sure new­com­ers and vis­i­tors know that it’s hap­pen­ing and that they’re wel­come to join.

  • Raye

    I am still enjoy­ing the fun of sim­ply say­ing the title out loud. And still grinning!

  • Julian Brels­ford

    “If I speak with human elo­quence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m noth­ing but the creak­ing of a rusty gate.”

    If I have per­fect procedures/structures/processes but don’t love, I’m noth­ing but the creak­ing of a rusty gate.

    Let’s invite some folks out for lunch, eh?

  • http://twitter.com/russnelson Russ Nel­son

    We have a potluck fol­low­ing every meet­ing. So yeah, every­body who comes is invited to dinner.

    • http://www.martinkelley.com Mar­tin Kelley

      That’s great Russ. I’d be curi­ous how these things play out dif­fer­ently in cities vs sub­urbs vs small towns vs rural areas. You’re pretty out in the mid­dle of nowhere, aren’t you? That would change the dynamic. Part of what I might be see­ing is small town life dis­ap­pear­ing into generic suburbia–small South Jer­sey farm towns that were the busi­ness and cul­tural cen­ters of sur­round­ing agri­cul­tural regions have become the boutique/independent hub in a expand­ing sea of box stores, devel­op­ments and high­ways. Cute cof­feeshops, art gal­leries, pizza stores and hair salons sur­round the meet­ing­house with the Wal­mart and Home Depot a few miles out on the old post road and the city just a quick thirty min­utes away down highway.

      • Joyce

        I once lived north of the mid­dle of no where, in same neck of the woods as Russ, & have fond mem­o­ries of the potlucks, espe­cially the one beau­ti­ful fall day when we all brought pies (Hi Russ!). About twenty years ago I moved to Cleve­land, where we take turns mak­ing soup to share at the rise of Meet­ing on First Days, and have potlucks once a month. At both the remote rural meet­ing and the larger met­ro­pol­i­tan meet­ing shar­ing a meal has been a won­der­ful way to get to meet new­com­ers and to deepen rela­tion­ships with Friends I’ve known for a long time. I highly rec­om­mend the prac­tice of shar­ing fel­low­ship & lunch.

  • Anthony

    Nice! When I first became a Quaker at Prince­ton Meet­ing, what attracted me (apart from the silent wor­ship) was the friend­li­ness of the mem­bers of Meet­ing. I was invited out to lunch, to din­ner, and made to feel part of a com­mu­nity. This was a far cry from the Pres­by­ter­ian church which I had been attend­ing and which earned its epi­thet: The Frozen Cho­sen. I always make it a prac­tice to reach out to new­com­ers, but you have raised the bar. Invite them to lunch! What a pro­gram for out­reach! I will def­i­nitely spread the word! Yours in friend­li­ness, Anthony

  • Jeff Hipp

    Yep. I became a Quaker:

    1) Because of the infa­mous Beliefnet Belief-o-matic test got me to walk through a meet­ing­house door and…

    2) Dave Draught at Austin Friends Meet­ing a.) approached me after my first meet­ing, b.) learned about what I was seek­ing in a spir­i­tual com­mu­nity, c.) con­nected me with meet­ing resources that might speak to my con­di­tion (Bible Study, weekly small group extended wor­ship). And he was able to do all this *with­out* even hav­ing to take me out to lunch!

    I’m so glad that Dave took the time to really lis­ten and min­is­ter to me in our first con­ver­sa­tion, and that Austin Friends Meet­ing had such casual small group wor­ship oppor­tu­ni­ties. I shud­der when I hear Friends tell new­com­ers that they can find their place in the Quak­erism by join­ing a committee.

  • Chron­i­cler

    Mar­tin — in Christo­pher Healey’s Jour­nal, he relates that the first meet­ing that he attended was Hop­kin­ton. The Wilburs invited him to their home for a meal after meet­ing. Not only did Healey join Friends (and later become a promi­nent pub­lic Friend), but after mov­ing away, he main­tained his friend­ship and cor­re­spon­dence with the Wilburs.

  • Chris­tine

    Good to know com­ments are back on “open”, and that clo­sure was temporary.

    Two things to offer:

    The first meet­ing I attended was amaz­ing. Not only did folks invite us out for lunch, but over for lunch — in their homes. This grew out of the sense of that com­mu­nity, which started in my under­grad­u­ate advisor’s home. I don’t know what Boul­der Meet­ing is like, now, but talk­ing about things over lunch pre­pared by Robin Pow­ell­son is not some­thing I’ll eas­ily for­get! There were other Friends (some in my classes) who were ready with the hos­pi­tal­ity… phys­i­cal and spir­i­tual… Stu­dents are often strapped for cash and could use a home-cooked meal.

    I got used to that in a west­ern Cana­dian Meeting.

    In another larger Cana­dian Meet­ing, after fel­low­ship, some­one would say “Who wants to go for Meet­ing for Eat­ing”… and off we’d go to a local restau­rant to talk about var­i­ous things.

    This hos­pi­tal­ity had me hooked from the begin­ning, and I won­der how much we’ve all for­got­ten about how to be invit­ing — not just to our meet­ing­houses, but into our homes.

    If we say we love our neigh­bors, why not invite them over for lunch?

  • LuRetta

    I love to lunch together after wor­ship! Grew up with this tra­di­tion in a Pres­by­ter­ian church (pizza it was in those days). These days, how­ever, I find the lunch invi­ta­tion does require some fore­thought. Some folks who already or newly attend Meet­ing sim­ply do not have the dis­cre­tionary pocket change to spon­ta­neously go out to lunch. So, I need to pre­pare for pos­si­ble lunch guests at home, or orga­nize potluck/something sim­i­lar at Meet­ing, or do the dicy and unequal dance of “my treat this time,” or sim­ply morph the invi­ta­tion into tea on the Meet­ing­house patio. Eco­nomic dif­fer­ences call us into a cer­tain amount of sen­si­tiv­ity and prepa­ra­tion. Def­i­nitely worth the effort!

  • Bill Rushby

    Hav­ing been “released” invol­un­tar­ily by our meet­ing sev­eral years ago, we are now attend­ing a con­ser­v­a­tive Men­non­ite church in our area. They have a sys­tem whereby the mem­ber fam­i­lies take turns in host­ing a Sun­day meal for vis­i­tors, both local and out-of-town, and invited reg­u­lars (includ­ing non-members like us). Since they often have vis­it­ing min­istry, this assures that the vis­it­ing preacher and those accom­pa­ny­ing him will always have an invi­ta­tion. It also fos­ters inti­macy in a way that a restau­rant meal prob­a­bly wouldn’t.

    Hav­ing a sched­ule for hos­pi­tal­ity meals doesn’t pre­clude more spon­ta­neous invi­ta­tions. Once a cou­ple invited us, even though they had no meal planned. They were sure they could put some­thing together for the occasion.

    I think Martin’s idea is a stel­lar one!

  • Simon Marc

    I feel that much of the time Friends in my Meet­ing are very cor­dial and wel­com­ing to vis­i­tors. ‘Course we are a small Meet­ing with mem­bers and atten­ders Scattered-goodly about the the vale’s and vista’s of S.A.Y.M.A. But sweet south­ern hos­pi­tal­ity still shines!! Thanks be to God.
    Per­haps, as we do, dur­ing the break betwixt Meet­ing for wor­ship, and 2cnd hour, a nice infor­mal, “tater– time” with all the good­ies that go with it would be a nice, yet pru­dent way of wel­com­ing the way­far­ing seeker.
    Then the vis­i­tor can social­ize, and be invited to stay for the upcom­ing
    hour of Quite Power.
    Marty, dear, per­haps thee makes moun­tains out of mish– mash, yes?

    simon marc