Queries for Meetings

FGC’s Youth Ministries Committee asks your Meeting to consider:

• Are Friends careful to recognize and name the gifts of Young Friends and Young Adult Friends around them?
• Do Friends worshipfully consider how Young Friends and Young Adult Friends’ gifts may be best used by their Monthly Meetings, Yearly Meetings or by FGC?
• Do Friends consider the difficulties that a high school-aged Friend or a Young Adult Friend may have in securing transportation to Meeting or Quaker Gatherings? Do Friends consider how money may limit a high school-aged Friend or a Young Adult Friends’ participation on committees?
• We have found that a Monthly Meeting’s readiness to accept Young Friends often determines how many Young Friends the meeting has. If a Monthly Meeting is supportive of the needs and concerns of Young Friends, they will be encouraged to attend. Therefore, does your Monthly Meeting consider how they might best support the gifts of high school-aged Friend or a Young Adult Friend, even if your Monthly Meetings does not have any Young Friends at present?
• Are Friends careful to consider how Young Adult Friends and high school-aged Friends may have similar spiritual needs as older Friends?

FGC’s Youth Ministries committee has developed several queries to help Monthly Meetings begin to explore their relationship with the younger Friends of the meeting. We offer these suggestions for how to use the queries

• Use one or all of these queries as your Meeting’s monthly query to be read at the beginning of Meeting for Business and/or included in your newsletter
• Use the queries as the basis for holding a discussion or worship sharing with Young Friends and/or Young Adult Friends
• Use the queries as the basis for a pre-meeting or post-meeting discussion
• Share the queries with your Yearly Meeting
• Give them to the high school youth group/First day school and ask them about their thoughts both individually and collectively (this could also be done as an interview)
• Write your own query and send it to us!