The Loving Outsider

Many denominations have full-time institutional ministers who work to support faith communities working through congregational closure.  As far as I can tell, Friends do not.  Our long-standing testimony against “hireling ministry” started as a recognition that academic degrees or denominational appointments do not qualify a person for ministry; instead, the immediate call of the Holy Spirit does.  But this has had some long-term cultural side effects.  One is our tendency to disregard subject-area-specific expertise in our faith communities even when it would be very helpful.  Another is our disinclination to provide financial support for people to live into genuine ministries.  For those reasons and others, we don’t have end-of-meeting-life experts with many years of experience who are prepared to help wherever needed.

This means that outside assistance usually comes in the form of people whose job descriptions might not explicitly include end-of-meeting-life support.  Most often, this is quarterly/area/regional meeting clerks. Sometimes, it might be yearly meeting clerks or staff members.  It could be trustees of the wider organization.  In theory, it could also be umbrella organization staff or committee members, though support for end-of-meeting-life does not seem to be a specifically articulated part of the mission of any national or international Quaker organization of which I am aware.

In theory, theologically speaking, Friends might say that the responsibility to minister to a meeting that’s closing belongs to whomever God calls to do it.  This resonates with me.  The trouble is, because Friends have a rightful concern about corporate discernment of significant calls to ministry, we tend to set up structures that eventually function as permission-based systems.  A person who is not in any particular institutional position, either volunteer or staff, might not feel as though they have permission from the wider body of Friends to intercede.  It gets tricky.

The whole thing is further complicated by issues of trust.  Every long-term congregational closure institutional minister with whom I’ve spoken so far (all of which have either been United Church of Christ or Church of Christ—Disciples) has brought this up.  They have all encountered situations where a local congregation has had bad experiences, or not enough experiences, with members of their denomination outside the local community.  When this happens, they often do not make fine distinctions in their emotional reactions.  They do not say, “Bernadette from Organization Y treated us badly, and therefore we do not trust Bernadette or Organization Y.”  They say, “Bernadette from Organization Y treated us badly, and therefore we do not trust outsiders.”  This may or may not be a conscious thought process, but either way, the result is the same.  It will be very difficult for any person outside the local community to provide meaningful support with an end-of-meeting-life process.

So—what is the loving outsider to do?  The Friend with genuine, Spirit-led call to help a community that is struggling?

First: recognize who you are in terms of your relationship with the meeting. 

Are you holding an institutional position?  Is it possible that accepting the institutional position has given you the responsibility of working with meetings at the end of their life cycles, whether you realized that before or not?  Do the members of the meeting know you?  Do you know them?

Or, if you are not holding an institutional position but you recognize a call to walk alongside a meeting that’s nearing the end of its life cycle, do they know you?  Do you know them?  Will they perceive you as a companion or as an interloper?  Is there anything you can do, or need to do, to be in right relationship?  For example, do you need to enter a discernment process and obtain a minute of travel?  Or, less formally, do you need to have a conversation with someone who does hold an institutional position to make sure that your concern is rightly led and will be welcomed?

Second: focus on trust.

Even if the need for action might be years down the road, you can focus on trust.  Trust is built differently in different communities, often because the local culture is different.  On a surface level, trust can come from things like “does this person talk like us?” or “does this person eat/dress like us?” or “does this person believe like us?”  Some communities need ongoing social connection to build trust.  Others are more likely to build trust through shared work on a project.  Still others will build trust only over time based on whether a person fulfills their commitments—which is complicated, because trust evaluation happens based on what the community perceives your commitments to be, which might not align with what you thought they were.

In all cases, trust building will be easier if a community is already inclined to trust outsiders, or already inclined to trust outsiders from some particular institution.  This comes from pre-existing or historical relationships.  Unfortunately, meetings that are nearing the end of their life cycle are less likely than others to have living memory of strong relationships with outsiders, simply because meetings nearing the end of their life cycle are likely to have less energy and to use that limited energy in a mostly inward direction.

A community nearing the end of its life cycle will likely accept support, and especially intercession, only from someone they already trust.

Third: meet the community where it is.

An outsider can often see things that members of a meeting cannot.  It can be tempting for the outsider to start by naming what can be seen, but before doing so, it might help to take some time and listen deeply.  As is the case for every type of ending and transition, laying down a meeting involves a lot of emotional work, and particularly grief.  Often, people cannot move forward effectively with endings until after they’ve had some opportunities to engage with their grief—not resolve it entirely, but at least begin to engage.  

Community members may need to worship, may need to feel angry, may need to feel sad, may need to try wild last-ditch efforts to “save” the community, may need to do any number of things before they are ready and able to make identifiable forward motion toward considering end-of-meeting-life.  If a meeting is not ready for the end-of-meeting-life conversation, the loving outsider might be able to gently encourage the group in that direction, but forcing the issue is almost guaranteed to backfire.  

Besides—to attempt to create, or enforce, a timeline and direction for a meeting would also not be in keeping with Friends’ understanding of discernment.  Like any other piece of work, the community needs to step toward end-of-meeting-life work at the point when it is able to reach a sense of the meeting to do so.

If you are a loving outsider wondering about how to walk alongside a meeting, you might be interested in this document from a Presbyterian Church.  It is very long, and there will be parts that you want to skim, but it tells the true story of a congregation that was not ready to close when the denomination thought it should be.  There’s much to be learned from the ways in which the local congregation and the institutional ministers interacted.  

Or—for a less logistical but spiritually relevant resource, consider reading New England Yearly Meeting’s Faith and Practice section on “Death, Dying, and Bereavement.”  As you read, try imagining how this text might apply to the “death” of a meeting.

f you’re looking to navigate the rest of this series, here it is in order: (1) The Life Cycle; (2) Acceleration; (3) Shame and Stigma; (4) Thriving and Declining; (5) All or Nothing; (6) The Meeting Member; (7) The Loving Outsider; (8) Practical Steps; (9) Pastoral Care.