CMM State of Society 2023

Concord Friends Meeting is a spiritual home, where we feel the divine presence.  Some of us are lifelong Friends and longtime members of the Meeting who remember meeting in a childcare center before the building of our Meetinghouse (2010).  Others of us have come more recently to either the Meeting or to Quakers.  We feel drawn to gather in person or over Zoom for weekly worship, to participate in “Meeting for Eating” on second and fourth Sundays, and to join many of the other customs of our Meeting, while making some new ones.

One of the most noticeable changes of the past year is equally a story of divine presence and physical logistics.  It has been a longtime dream of many members that our Meetinghouse be used during the week by other groups, such as a childcare center.  In 2023, that possibility presented itself.  However, during inspections of the building, we learned that our building, heated by a wood-pellet boiler, did not meet fire standards.  In a remarkably short time we secured the bridge loans, grants, contributions, and professional expertise needed to remove the boiler and install a new geothermal heating system; along with the solar panels on the roof, we are now net carbon neutral.  This and other safety changes brought our building up to fire code and enabled us to use our space for larger public gatherings and an outdoor-based program which provides much-needed childcare to about 20 families.  This was possible through the work of ad hoc committees that worked quickly to accomplish the needed steps, faithfully reporting their progress during our regular Meetings for Worship with Attention to Business, where the gathered body gratefully approved their work and affirmed the presence of Spirit in guiding these changes.

We have felt enthusiasm and new sparks of Spirit elsewhere.  Our practice of singing hymns before Meeting continues.  Many of our Fourth Sunday programs have been well attended, and our Peace, Social, and Earth Care Concerns Committee put on two very successful fundraising concerts for AFSC and our Asylum Seekers Support Fund in May and December.  Youth Religious Education Committee traditionally holds a fundraiser around Christmastime to support a student at the Kenya Rising Family Care Center, but last year, an ad hoc Yard Sale Committee organized a successful summer yard sale for Center.  This was an intergenerational Meeting-wide effort that was highly successful in both fundraising and in raising the Meeting’s visibility in the area.  We are grateful to feel new movement of the spirit in these efforts.

Our Meeting demographics remain a concern.  Our First Day School is small, though we are grateful for the faithful attendance and ministry of the children who come.  New Friends are joining, and some are leaving, but we sense the truth of the words one Friend shared that we are an aging community.  We are a community blessed with wise elders, firm finances, and an awareness of Divine presence.  We are a community that has been transformed before, and we are open to further transformation.  We gather each week in faithful, waiting worship.