M&O December Update

13/12/21 09:56 Filed in: SBQM Update

STARTING NEW CONVERSATIONS

As we face the end of 2021, preparing for Christmas and festivities under the shadow of Omicron, we realise the continuing importance of flexibility. After nearly two years of the pandemic, learning to adjust, to be resilient and to look out for each other have been lessons that have been repeatedly reinforced. But we equally know how important to plan for the future, and having faith that the disrupted life of our Meeting will in due course come to an end.

So in M&0 we are starting to prepare for "Conversations" after Meeting, whenever that proves safe, enabling us to deepen our understanding of key social and spiritual issues we need to address.

On social issues we want to explore further the issues behind the prisoner befriending service run by Quaker Service, in which a number of our Members are involved. Also the experiences of refugees and asylum seekers and how they can be assisted are important issues we feel we need to explore. We are keen to hear from some of the excellent organisations working in this field. Recently, at Monthly Meeting ,many of us were very moved when we heard from Friends in Frederick Street and Bishop Street about how over many years they had supported an asylum seeker from Zimbabwe, helping him eventually, after a long struggle, find a new, settled life here.

At the same time, we know from our survey in the early summer that some Friends would like "Conversations" about Quakerism, its key themes and how such an open, lived faith fits together. It is quite a challenge to work out how we do that, but we are starting to work on this, looking at our experience of Quaker Quest some time ago, and our Quaker History course that we ran some years ago. In this we want to see if any of our neighbouring Meetings would like to join in with us, something which we have always have found really enriching. And Zoom links from the Meeting House will always enable us, in a very practical way, to reach out to new seekers.

If you have any thoughts on this, do talk to Will Haire or Ian Mitchell. We would love to hear from you.

The Ministry and Oversight team - Felicity, Jonathan, Kerry, Marie, Michael, Sylvia and Will

SOUTH BELFAST QUAKERS

Quakers (or the Religious Society of Friends as they are also known), have held Meetings for Worship in Ireland since 1654. After a previous failed attempt to establish a lasting Belfast Meeting around 1665, the first permanent Belfast Quaker Meeting was established in 1799, and in 1810 it moved to Brewery Lane, now known as Frederick Street. It wasn’t until 1956 that a second Meeting was approved for Friends who lived in Belfast, this time based in the south of the city. South Belfast Meeting House is an active Meeting with approximately 45 adult members and attenders who worship together each Sunday. Children & Young People also play a large part in our meeting, and we have on average 22, 1-18 year olds joining us for the last 10 mins of our worship, after their own activities.

Meeting for Worship takes place at 10.45am each Sunday at our meeting house ( see address and directions on the contact page )

Alternatively you can join us on Zoom with the following details:

Meeting iD: 4613195026
Pass: 143412

South Belfast Meeting is part of the larger Ireland Yearly Meeting (see details of Quakers in Ireland below)