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The Quaker tradition is one of Spirit-led activism on behalf of civil rights
and justice. Given that a foremost civil rights issue today concerns the right for all couples to marry, regardless of gender, TCFM unites with a growing number of Quaker and other faith communities who are working for marriage equality.

We affirm the right for all caring couples to marry religiously and civilly.
TCFM is not against the right of the state to give legal sanction to marriage. Rather we are called to witness against the injustice of the system as currently practiced.

In light of this searching, and because we often learn God’s Truth based on direct experience, we recommend a period of testing the following actions.

That TCFM:

1. Choose to lay aside for a period of three years–while still
   retaining–its legal right to perform the civil part of marriage;

In addition, TCFM will:

1. Continue to provide clearness committees for all couples who request one for marriage;
2. Continue to witness religious weddings in the manner of Friends, that is, bearing witness to God’s marriage of two people;
3. Continue to take under its care all relationships and marriages that exist within the community;
4. Continue to support all couples who seek civil marriage, regardless of the gender of the partners;
5. Seek opportunities to bear witness outwardly until equal treatment under the law exist for all couples.

We search for ways to expand the rights of some couples without restricting the rights of others. In the midst of wrestling within our meeting and in our state, we support marriage equality for all caring, committed couples. We trust that by TCFM’s action and witness, we will help hasten progress toward marriage equality for all.

Approved by Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business Nov. 13, 2009.

Related:

• Inclusiveness of Same Gender Couples: Oct. 1986 Minute

Please adhere to these deadlines:

• Make requests for scholarships to Northern Yearly Meeting or Friends General Conference by priority deadline of May 1, or final deadline May 10, 2008. Those meeting the May 3 deadline will have priority. (Note: early FGC registration begins on-line on March 27-April 6, then opens up again April 11. Check registration materials for more on requesting scholarships or work grants from FGC.) Please note that TCFM funds are limited.
• All other requests need to be submitted at least six weeks prior to the event or Friends activity for which support is requested.

To request a scholarship, please download and complete the form linked below and send to Scholarship Committee, c/o Clerk, TCFM Meetinghouse, 1725 Grand Av. St. Paul, MN 55105.

• 2009 TCFM Scholarships Form

• Click here to make a pledge

9th Month 2008

Dear Friends:

The TCFM Development Committee has begun the task of preparing the Meeting’s budget for 2009 and needs to know how much money Friends are willing to contribute to support the Meeting and its activities.

As you may remember, the 2008 budget forced us to choose between two important values at the heart of the Quaker experience: our historic witness of expressing our faith through service and action in the world-at-large, and our testimony of integrity that counseled not to plan on spending more than we earn.

In the end, because we did not pledge gifts sufficient to meet all of our anticipated expenses and historical obligations, the Meeting adopted a budget that made substantial cuts to our spending – $28,000 less than we wanted to spend, including eliminating $8500 in support to national Quaker organizations. Our decision distressed many Friends but the Meeting as a whole believed it was not prudent to commit to spending more money than we could reasonable anticipate bringing in.

Fortunately, it appears that Friends will give more than they pledged and we may be able to restore at least some of the gifts before the year is over. But if we remain committed not to promise to spend more than we think we can bring in 2009, and if we wish to restore these commitments as part of our operating budget, we need to increase our pledges substantially.

How much more is needed? In 2008, if contributors had increased their pledges by about 25%, we would have been able to meet all of our operating obligations, including support of national Friends organizations.

But this year, there are additional needs.

The rainy day for which we have been saving our money has dawned. Clean-up after a burst water-sprinkler pipe in January led us to discover that the Meetinghouse is in need of some substantial structural repair and renovation in order to make it safe and healthy. Among other things, we have discovered that our roof is at the end of its life and needs to be replaced; windows in the Friends in Residence (FIR) apartment and elsewhere in the new addition have severe water damage and need to be replaced; the leaky windows have also caused damage to external walls that now need to be repaired and replaced. The initial phase of this work will most likely absorb nearly all of our reserves, and then some.

In addition to repairing this damage, we need to make some major improvements to our building. We know we have to install a heating, cooling, and ventilation system in the FIR apartment. We may also have to improve the insulation and ventilation in the attic area between the ceiling and roof, among other things. The Trustees and Meetinghouse Committee expect to have a better idea of what needs to be done and its estimated cost before the end of the year.

With these needs in mind, we ask that you do two things. First, make a definite commitment to how much you will give to the Meeting during 2009 to meet its basic day-to-day ministries. The Development Committee will base the budget it will recommend to the Meeting on the amount that is pledged. As you can see from the chart below, a relatively small number of families are contributing a disproportionate amount of the Meeting’s budget. If you can do more, we hope you will.

Second, please make an additional pledge to meet the extra costs of making our meetinghouse safe and healthful (MOMSAH). Although we do not know at this time exactly how much will be needed, a realistic idea of what we can expect will help us to determine how much we may need to borrow to complete the work.

Enclosed is a pledge form and a return envelope. Please respond as soon as possible, and by October 1 if at all possible. Pledges may be mailed in the enclosed envelope, or left at the Meetinghouse in the Development Committee mailbox slot in the office area.

On behalf of the Development Committee,

Rob Axtmann, Laël Gatewood, and Paul Landskroener

Distribution of gifts to TCFM during 2007 (by household)

$2500 or more – 4 households: $17,300 (24% of total))
$1500 – $2499: 9 households: $15,670 (22%)
$1000 – $1499: 9 households: $10,255 (14%)
$500 – $999: 24 households: $15,660 (22%)
$250 – $499: 18 households: $6645 (9%)
$100 – $249 : 40 households: $5110 (7%)
$100 or less: 28 households: $1250 (2%)

• Click here to make a pledge

One Friend spoke of the “blessings of bigness,” and in fact our bigness gives rise to an energy, intensity, breadth of activities, and diversity of perspectives, which are inseparable from our identity as a meeting. These are qualities many TCFM Friends find spiritually uplifting, and to which many meetings would aspire; yet, some of us look upon these same qualities and find barriers to our spiritual growth and identity as Quakers. The delicious irony is, many of those who find themselves spiritually uplifted and spiritually blocked by these qualities, are the same people.

If you want to know your gifts, look closely at your weaknesses. They may be two sides of the same coin.

We have three regularly scheduled hours of worship each week, the largest of which is 11 a.m. Sunday morning, and averages 60 or so Friends, occasionally reaching 100 or more. This tends to be the worship with the most visitors and new attenders, as well as the gathering for families with children. There is First Day school during the school year, child care during the summer, family meeting on First Sundays, and a shorter, inter-generational meeting for worship when there is a fifth Sunday.

There is also 8:30 worship Sunday mornings, which has grown to an average of about 40 Friends; and a smaller worship at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday evenings, generally drawing 10-15 people. Each of these has its distinct flavor; both tend to be attended by a more consistent group of Friends, and usually close with personal introductions and worship sharing.

Worship does not happen only in the meeting room. Reflecting on the power and creativity of our First Day school students and teachers, a Friend noted that “energy and love emanates from many parts of our building.” In fact, there is not an unused corner of the meeting house on Sunday morning, and many of those corners are quite crowded—another challenge for our large meeting. We have youth in nine age groups, most of which vary greatly in size from week to week. Out of 115 registered students, about 80 are regular attenders. With at least two teachers in each class, it is not uncommon to have more bodies in First Day school than in the meeting room.

We have approximately 120 members and 47 associate members. We have had two births in the past year, one adoption, and at the end of 2006, greeted 19 children at a “Wee Welcoming” for young Friends who have joined our community since our last such welcoming. We also have welcomed five new members and seven associate members during the past year, and five Friends have transferred into TCFM from other meetings.

A number of members of our community also attend Laughing Waters Worship Group in Minneapolis, not formally affiliated with TCFM yet clearly connected to us.

2005 was declared a Year of Jubilation, where we sought guidance together to discern the ministries of TCFM and the best structures to support those ministries. In 2006 we began discerning steps as a meeting toward implementing those structures. Most concretely, we agreed to hire staff to help us care for the physical building and to manage administrative tasks, though the details of those positions are not yet decided.

This process was largely triggered by earlier difficulties on our nominating committee in finding individuals to serve on various committee positions. Since then the committee has shifted its focus to finding individuals for a few higher profile committees and positions, most of which require not just attendance but membership in TCFM: ministry and counsel, trustees, clerk’s team. Even with that reduced scope, the task is a challenge.

A Friend observed that TCFM’s substantial growth in attendance in recent years, has outpaced the growth in formal membership. We have approximately 120 members to serve on about 20 leadership positions requiring membership. Many of those members are aged, ill, or reducing their committee involvement for personal reasons. This leaves us with 80 or so viable candidates to rotate through these leadership positions, which is challenging. Other committees also have had difficulties finding people with the time and energy to serve.

Spirit may be trying to tell us something. If we cannot find resources to continue what we have been doing, perhaps we need to be still, listen, and hear if we are being called to something new.

Some committees have exploded with energy and new ideas over the past year. Adult education programs have included mostly well-attended Sunday morning programs throughout the school year, as well as over 100 Friends taking part in Quakerism 101 classes over the past three years. One Friend has independently coordinated several multi-week educational series on Quaker history and spiritual traditions, also well attended, most recently “Experiments in Praying without Ceasing.”

Advancement committee has been bursting with energy and ideas as well, instituting a series of friendly eight potlucks and creative listening circles to help build community and create opportunities for Friends–especially newcomers–to talk about their spiritual lives and get more involved in the life of the community.

Work on peace and social justice issues continue to be central to the lives of Friends at TCFM. The war in Iraq, attempts to constitutionally ban same-sex marriage, and the threat of global warming, have been some of the central issues where many Friends are powerfully led, and have been redoubling their efforts.

Yet, for all the work of individual Friends on these concerns, it is sometimes hard to see how our meeting is led as a meeting to communicate our vision of a better world to the larger society. This distinction, between our leadings as individual Friends in the world, and the role of our Friends meeting in the world, is not yet clear. Peace and social action, the committee that has provided leadership along these lines, is currently “lying fallow,” in the words of one Friend. We will see what rises from that fallow field.

Community service is another area where more work is done by individual Friends, than by the meeting as a body. Even so, with leadership by our community service committee, TCFM once again served as an overflow homeless shelter in cooperation with the St. Paul Area Council of Churches, this time for a little more than half the month of March 2006. The committee also coordinates our involvement in quarterly Loaves and Fishes dinners and food shelf projects.

With the Friends General Conference (FGC) Gathering happening in River Falls, WI in July 2007, many TCFM Friends are involved in planning and leading the gathering. It has been a wonderful opportunity to extend our involvement in the wider world of Quakerism, and to let that world know what we are about.

A variety of informal groups meet for fellowship and around shared concerns, including Adult Young Friends, Old Friends, at least one Practical Mysticism group, and various small groups for spiritual nurture. One Friend continues to convene meetings for healing. Friends continue to care for and guide one another through committees of support, clearness and eldership, both formal groups convened by ministry and counsel, and Friends who simply come forward to minister to the needs of a Friend.

Standing Committees

Committee positions are generally for one or two year terms, starting in September. If you are interested in serving on a committee, please contact nominating committee.

Advancement

Helps create a welcoming environment for visitors. Eases the transition from newcomer to regular attender. Provides information on Friends’ beliefs and practices. Arranges for greeters before meeting, provides nametags and newcomer pamphlets, and monitors announcements on the bulletin boards and hall tables.

Community Service:

(currently inactive)

Provides an avenue by which Friends can offer direct service to Twin Cities area communities. Coordinates Project Home [homeless shelter] each fall as well as Loaves & Fishes participants.

Fellowship:

Provides social hour following meeting for worship and 3rd Sunday potlucks; plans and coordinates holiday social gatherings and other non-regular social functions on behalf of the meeting.

Finance and Development:

Considers long-term financial needs of meeting; monitors pledges; prepares financial reports; initiates fund drives when necessary.

First Day School:

Provides educational activities for children and teens to assist in developing an understanding of Quaker history, beliefs, and attitudes; ensures that appropriate staff, materials, and space are available; includes a Curriculum Subcommittee; provides Nursery Coordinator.

Friends Forum:

Arranges for adult educational programs, usually held Sunday mornings between the Meetings for Worship; may provide or coordinate additional programs as well, such as Quakerism 101.

House Use:

Recommends policy and regulates use of the Meeting House; is responsible for policies and decisions regarding use of the Meeting House, its orderliness and cleaning; hires Friend in Residence.

Library:

Acquires and catalogs appropriate books and periodicals; cares for the circulation of books and periodicals.

Maintenance, Repair, and Construction:

Does hands-on repair work; maintains maintenance manual; ensures there is compliance with building codes, such as occupancy, elevator function, etc.

Meetinghouse:

Address urgent and immediate needs of the building facility. Attend to repairs and maintenance. Manage large construction projects. Support the Friend in Residence. Address concerns of building safety & compliance. Hire paid professionals as needed. Pursues intercommittee work with Stewardship Comm. as needed.

News:

Newsletter, Announcement Sheet, Website, Bulletin Board, Mailing list/Directory, Newsletter production. Disseminates information to the meeting community through the coordination and distribution of the monthly newsletter, weekly announcement sheets, bulletin boards, Meeting directories, website, etc.

Peace and Social Action:

(currently inactive)

Keeps Meeting informed of current social issues of concern to Friends; recommends or initiates specific actions (e.g. letter writing, development of position paper).

Stewardship:

Address important and long-term needs of the building facility. Focus on community involvment and coordinating meeting-wide activities. Raise awareness of value of stewardship. Develops “people resources” and provides opportunities for skill-sharing. Pursues intercommittee work with Meetinghouse Comm. as needed.

Clearness and Support Committees

Any Friend or attender can request a committees of care, clearness or support from Ministry and Counsel Committee. Requests for membership and marriage under the care of the meeting are always processed by clearness committees, and committees can also be requested for support or clearness during times of transition, suffering, or ripeness for spiritual growth.

Some words on the spiritual discipline of a Friends’ meeting for business

By Alan Eccleston
Clerk of Mt. Toby Monthly Meeting, 1988

(intended as orientation for first-time attenders at Meeting for Business)

In this mutual exploration, there are disciplines which help us. Friends wishing to speak raise their hand. When the clerk recognizes them, they rise, and, when ready, speak their mind. If the clerk asks for silence, all Friends return to worship seeking understanding and openness; in this silence, one speaks only if led.

As some clarity emerges the clerk will try to discern a “sense of the meeting” which represents the light we corporately share on the matter at this point in time. This will be reflected in a minute which the clerk will state and then ask, “Do Friends approve?” Those who approve so signify and those who do not make their reservations known.. If all approve, the clerk will acknowledge this. The recording clerk may be asked to read back the minute at this point.

If there are reservations, the clerk may recognize Friends who wish to share their reservations or the clerk may try modifying the minute. If two or three persons arc still uncomfortable with a course of action, the clerk may ask if they are willing to stand aside and let the Meeting proceed. Another option is a minute stating approval of the action, noting that some Friends remain uncomfortable with it. A “sense of the meeting” need not be unanimous approval. If after several tries, there is no clear sense of the meeting, the question may be referred to a committee or carried over to a future meeting for business.

Over time, our cumulative decisions shape and define us as a spiritual community. Your regular and worshipful participation will deepen the process and strengthen our unity in the Spirit.

Spiritual Responsibility in the Meeting for Business

By Patricia Loring

Hartford Monthly meeting

In working toward a decision, Friends are urged to recall that there are important differences between their process and the one known in the secular world as “reaching consensus”. So many of us sit on secular committees which have as outward resemblance to those of Friends, that it becomes very easy to transfer their methods, attitudes and goals to Friends’ committees. Friends have been so competent at running the business of the world chat they have always been at risk of eroding their life as Friends by assimilate-to the secular values of effi-ciency decisiveness, effectiveness, and dispatch.

When Friends make a decision, they are not seeking a consensus of their membership. They are seeking the will of God in a particular matter They have found the most reliable guide to that will to be the sense of the meeting. The sense of the meeting may be different from consensus because the sense of the meeting can arise only out of a membership which has in fact given itself over to seeking the will of God and has prepared itself spiritually for the search. It may be that some present have not yet come to that condition of seeking. It may be that some have come seeking that their own will be done – sometimes for excellent reasons. It may be that they come with a leading from God which is quite true for themselves but not a leading for the meeting as a whole.

It is easy and tempting for Friends to fall into secular customs in the conduct of business: each one simply seeking, working, manipulating for one’s own point of view attempting to control the outcome to the advantage of the position with which one has arrived. Unfortunately these methods tend to obscure the sense of the meeting rather than clarify it. The sense of the meeting is better arrived at when each person present relinquishes control, to endeavor to see himself and others not merely with the mind’s eye but with the eye of faith; to discern not only his own leading but the leadings of others; to keep in mind that at any moment the most improbable person may be the prophet of God; to discern how the leading of the meeting may be different from the quiet genuine leading of the individual.

The individual may be lead to go to point “A”, but may have to go there without the support of the meeting or with only its warm wishes. The individual may be led to call the meeting to go to point “A”, so that in fact it will get to point “B” rather than to point “C”. The individual may be mistaken altogether in his leading to go to point “A”. It may be only a good or interesting or poor idea. Or it may be that the individual has a leading which is valid not only for himself but is a true calling for the whole meeting or society to go to point “A”, with varying amounts and kinds of support from individuals within the meeting. Ultimately the responsibility for discernment rests with the clerk. This is the one who must not only intellectually sift what is going on but more importantly – must discern the spiritual dimension of the interaction. Yet it has been said with truth that the clerk can best clerk the meeting only when everyone present is also clerking. That is, everyone present must be practicing spiritual discernment to be best of his capacity while recognizing that the clerk has been chosen for a special gift of discernment.

The necessary discernment of leadings can only be done after the manner of Friends from the deep centering that can arise in an atmosphere of worship. That is why we begin our meetings with a time for recollection of ourselves and for worship. That is why it is important to pause between speakers to recollect and re-center ourselves to listen and to speak in the Light rather than in passions or the intellect: to remember that we are engaged together in a search for the will of God rather than in discussion argument or persuasion. Information and reason are to serve that higher purpose rather than to be ends in themselves. The process also requires of the members tremendous openness, sensitivity and tenderness to one another.

One reason that Friends conduct of business is so slow is that it takes time to sift ourselves and the matter at hand for ego, self-will, sincere mistakes, matters of individual consclence, and for reasons which may be excellent intellectually but not necessarily for God’s will. In a meeting which is seeking at the deepest level, there must be time and opportunity for all these matters to rise to the surface, to be examined in the Light, and to settle again to a deeper level of quiet. These must be time not only for those whose interest and concern for the matter has impelled them to go deeply into it, but for those whose inward processes and Row of words are moving at a slower pace – and perhaps at a deeper level as well. There must be time for change to take place inwardly – not just in the head but in the heart and gut – as members search the matter and are searched by it. For no one can come with sincerity to a Friends’ gathering for business with a mind unalterably set. To do so would leave no room for the Spirit to move, for Way to open, for discernment to take place. Friends’ spiritual process is demanding; and it’s difficult to keep it sorted out from the secular models with which we spend so much of our lives. Yet the process is sufficiently precious to make it worth laboring to keep sight of its spiritual basis while we are in the midst of it. Otherwise it may become a set of empty forms used in a secular manner.

One important effect of staying within the Spirit from which the process is derived is that it can keep use in unity even while our opinions diverge. Remaining aware that we are jointly engaged in the enterprise of discerning together the will of God for the meeting, rather than trying to advance or defeat a particular project, we can be held together in holy communion as members of the meeting and of the Society. We can only be divided if we put our partisanship ahead of the unity order and love within the meeting.

During one of my stays at Pendle Hill, the clerk announced at Meeting for Business that we had an unusually long and troublesome agenda, promising to keep us at it until well into the night. The only thing to do, she said, was to alter the time of our opening worship. We would simply have to take more time in worship that usual. And we did. After a few minutes, there were some restless rustlings; but we went on for surely no less than twenty minutes – long enough for the restless impatience to “get on with it” to fall away as we began to come to our center individually and as a group. I have rarely attended a meeting for business conducted with more peace, order, love and even dispatch. From the place of quiet we had come to, many of the difficulties fell away as matters were discerned in a new Light.