I have seen this with other churches as well; the local UU fellowship grew from ten to 15 people in the 5 years that they met in living rooms; they grew from 30 to 60 in two years when they had their own meetinghouse.

I am trying hard to raise the money to allow us to purchase and maintain an appropriate building for a meetinghouse. Until we do, our Meeting will continue to hide its light under a bushel, despite all our efforts to the contrary. The desire to have a “home” is deep within the human heart, whether it is where we reside or where we worship.

The argument that we could sell our meetinghouses and use the funds to help the poor and disadvantaged makes some sense, unless you think it through all the way. First, there is the fact that having a meetinghouse for a “home” for the faithful does fulfill a deep human need. Second, if we sold every Quaker structure in North America, how much would we really have and how much could we do with it? Can we be good stewards of what we have been given, and not apply some kind of a means test? Would what we could do with the money really be that much better than what we are doing with it now? I’m sure all kinds of anecdotes could be shared about meetinghouses with small congregations that suck up a lot of the available funds, but I’m not interested in anecdotes here. I’m talking about spreading the Good News: what would really work better?

On the topic of a need for a spiritual renewal within the RSOF, there is a lot I’d like to say. Suffice it to say that for my beloved Society to experience a new vigor would be wonderful. On that much, I believe most of us would agree. But the devil is in the details, and that’s one for another time.