You are invited to the first in a series of "Pastries and Pamphlets" programs offered by the Lehigh Valley Friends Meeting Worship and Ministry Committee on Saturday, January 25, from 10 am to noon at the Meetinghouse and on Zoom. The first pamphlet to be read and discussed is Members One of Another: The Dynamics of Membership in Quaker Meeting by Thomas Gates.
Over the years, LVMM Friends have periodically raised the question, "What does membership in the Meeting mean?" This pamphlet gives this author's response to this question. It will give us much to think about.
Lehigh Valley Friends Meeting
The description on the back of the pamphlet reads: "In Quaker faith and practice, the individual and the meeting are in a dynamic, mutually supportive, and reciprocal relation. In this pamphlet Tom Gates examines many of the factors affecting the relationship between the Seeker and the Meeting, before and during membership. While a person may be drawn to Quakerism for a particular reason, over time the individual's needs, and the way in which the Meeting community is able to meet them, can change.
There are stages to be gone through as we grow into the life of the meeting community. Is it peace we are after? Service? Shared values? A deepening of our faith? What, exactly, is a leading? Tom Gates examines the many aspects of membership and the obligations it may impose on us, individually and as a faith family."