Weaving a Wider Welcome Archives - Friends General Conference

Overview

Welcoming is not the work of one or two people at the door. It takes a whole meeting to create a culture that is ready to attentively and joyfully bring newcomers into the fold of the community. This Weaving a Wider Welcome topic offers you an opportunity to explore best practices for bringing newcomers into the life of the meeting, with special emphasis on welcoming people of color, families with young children, and LGBTQIA folks.

Credits

Welcoming Friend Working Group, 2018-2019: Holly Baldwin (FGC), Steven David Flowers (ILYM), Kody Hersh (SEYM), Katrina McQuail (CanYM), Bronwyn Mohlke (NYYM), Suzanne Siverling (ILYM), Eppchez Yes (NEYM), Katherine Youngmeister (IMYM)
Content Development: Rachel Ernst Stahlhut, Holly Baldwin, Kody Hersh, Lori Sinitzky, Eppchez Yes

Search Exercises

Modality

Age Range

Maximum Time Required

Browse Exercises

Grounding

Introduction to the Topic

Going Deeper

Additional readings and resources to take you deeper into the themes of Weaving a Wider Welcome.

Practical Resources and Good Ideas

Below you'll find resources and practical suggestions that participants in the Welcoming Friend Project Peer Groups found useful for increasing awareness and changing the culture of welcome within their meetings.

Introduction

To become true communities of radical welcome, we must look inward, notice the ways our beliefs, assumptions, practices, and physical spaces creates barriers to full engagement, and we must choose to change.

Practicing

Experiential Activities

Woolman Hill Remonstrance

Committing to complete this list of demands will aid your meeting in being more relevant to people young and old

Duration: 30 minutes
Age Range: High School and Up

Our Experiences of Being Welcomed

This exercise invites you to reflect on your own experience of welcoming.

Duration: 30 minutes
Age Range: Middle School and Up

Examining Assumptions

What assumptions can we identify that we as a society, as a meeting, or we individually make about newcomers?

Duration: 30 minutes
Age Range: Middle School and Up

90 Seconds to Freedom

A tool for feeling emotions and holding space for transformation, specifically focusing on the pain of white supremacy and violence.

Duration: 30 minutes
Age Range: High School and Up

Transformation & Freedom

Take a moment to imagine us all being free.

Duration: 30 minutes
Age Range: Middle School and Up

Practicing Messy Conversations

As we embark on our journeys as antiracist people of faith, we are bound to make mistakes and say the wrong thing.

Duration: 45 minutes
Age Range: High School and Up

Transforming Quaker Welcoming

Practice building relationships across differences to contribute to a more welcoming atmosphere for all

Duration: 30 minutes
Age Range: Middle School and Up

Microaggression Roleplay

Come together and learn about racial microaggressions through this roleplay activity.

Duration: 1 hour
Age Range: High School and Up

Sharing

Conversation Starters

Theater of Voices

The experience of being either an insider or outsider in a group is a universal human experience. The quotations we share in this exercise are real life experiences of contemporary Quakers -- some affirming and some marginalizing.

Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes
Age Range: High School and Up

Our Hopes and Vision as a Meeting

When you have a shared vision of what type of meeting you’d like to become together, you can begin to discern a plan that will get you there

Duration: 1 hour
Age Range: Middle School and Up

Reflecting on Racism and Privilege Among Friends

Taking responsibility is not accepting blame. It is empowering. Do we accept the gift of our responsibility for positive change and racial justice?

Duration: 45 minutes
Age Range: High School and Up

The Needs of Newcomers

How do we welcome and meet the varying needs of newcomers at different points in time?

Duration: 45 minutes
Age Range: Middle School and Up

Understanding the Experience of Newcomers in Your Meeting

Take some time to investigate the experience of newcomers within your meeting.

Duration: 30 minutes
Age Range: High School and Up

There is Hope

What does good welcoming look like?

Duration: 30 minutes
Age Range: High School and Up

Meetinghouse Walkthrough

Taking a fresh look at our meetinghouses to notice design elements that signal who is and isn't welcome.

Duration: 1 hour
Age Range: Middle School and Up

Make a “Listening Mural”

Make a “listening mural” where everyone represents in words or imagery what they experience in the silence of worship.

Duration: 45 minutes
Age Range: All Ages

Meeting for Worship as an Opportunity for Inward Transformation

An introduction to the experience of the young Samuel Bownas, who would become a faithful and effective traveling Quaker minister in the 18th century.

Duration: 30 minutes
Age Range: High School and Up

Painting the Patterns

Explore the spirituality of art and the art of spirituality.

Duration: 45 minutes
Age Range: All Ages

✕

Translate »