Meeting for Worship 101

It’s time! Shake off the sand and log into the devices… Let’s get ready for the new school year. 

My first task this week is to prepare for Meeting for Worship at Lower School. How do you prepare for this in your context? Send me all the tips and tricks! Here is how I prepare:

1. Meeting for Worship Schedule

Schedule the meetings, meeting locations, and the roles that we’ll need students and grown ups to take on. At my school, we meet in a variety of contexts over the course of the year.

• We meet as a singular class family in our own space. (every 6 weeks or so)

• We meet as three or four classes together in our Meeting House. (4 times during the year)

• We meet as a whole Lower School community. (once each month)

• We meet as two classes, paired in one of our classroom spaces - one class hosts and the second class visits. (every remaining week)

This is done largely by random draw, making sure that the locations and meeting partners are varied and everyone gets to meet in the Meeting House an equal amount of times. 

Side note: A few years ago we began holding as many of our whole Lower School Meetings outside on our small field. Everyone takes yoga mats or picnic blankets and sets up in a giant circle. Our grown ups join us with their own mat or camp chair. It’s lovely.

2. Query Writing Schedule

On the Meeting for Worship schedule, Query writing classes are noted (drawing class names from a hat). We have a query writing class once every two weeks. Of course we welcome additional queries as students, groups of students, classes, or faculty/staff feel moved to share a query. It’s a great critical thinking skill practice to write these powerful, open ended, thought provoking questions. We say keep them coming! The more the merrier! 

Queries are:

• Submitted in a designated Meeting House mailbox

• Copied/shared in paper copy with each class and learning space on our campus

• Are read at our Meetings for Worship (the hosting class is the clerk and selects the Query reader)

Sample Meeting for Worship schedule (please note that the number/letter code is the indicator for each class:

Lower School Quaker Meeting Schedule

Friends:  Here is the weekly Quaker Meeting Schedule for this year.  Please review it carefully.  If you need to make any changes, please let your partner class know ahead of time.  If you are scheduled for the Meeting House and cannot attend, please let Denise or Kathleen know.  If there are any mistakes, please kindly let us know☺

Please note that the clerk class for the Meeting House is noted. Clerking class should plan to bring a copy of the Query and select a reader. Clerks will also center the meeting, sit on the facing bench, and offer the silent transfer of heart to hand in order to close the meeting. If you are hosting MfW in your space, you are the clerk (choose a Query reader).

Be sure to note your Query writing time, highlighted in pink. You may submit your class Query in the Quaker Query mailbox on the Quaker table in lower Groome. Friends are invited to submit queries as individuals, small groups, or large groups at any time during the year by placing their Query in the mailbox and raising the red flag. Whenever possible, please ask students to add their name in case clarification or questions arise.

Key:  The “>” symbol indicates guests/hosts.  For example, “PK>3x” indicates that PK will travel to the 3x classroom for meeting that week. There is a list of classes and their class name at the end of this document.

December	Meeting House	Classrooms	Multi-purpose Room
Tues 12/2 Query: 2X	1X, 4Y, 3Z, 2Y Clerk: 2Y	3y>PK   4x>KC 3X>KQ   4Z>2Z KN>1Y   1Z>2X
Tues 12/9		Meeting for classroom community - on your own, outside, a place of meaning, etc.
Tues 12/16 Query: PK			All LS Meeting with attention to the Winter Solstice

3. Gather the stuff that everyone will need

Now that the schedule has been prepared, I move onto the practical items that we use at our Meetings for Worship. We use some cueing tools to support our practice. These tools will show up at just about every one of our meetings and help as a visual reminder of what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. They are inspired by my own visit to many Quaker Meeting Houses in the UK ten years ago. I noticed that each Meeting had a small table in the center. These tables had three things in common. I re-versioned those items for a Quaker school context.

Centering table:

• Bible - Our version is a small tealight which we think of as our inner light.

• Faith & Practice book - Our version is a small tri-fold card that we use as a discernment reminder (stay tuned for more on how we introduce and teach discernment in our Speaking into the Silence course) and/or some small rocks with selected testimonies written on them (because Testimonies Rock! 😉).

• Vase of flowers - Our version might be flowers but also might be anything that connects us to nature and the earth.

We teach our community that these items on the centering table are tools that we can use to deepen our practice and remind us of our purpose in the gathered group. Feeling distracted? The testimony rocks remind us to listen to our still small voice for ways to grow and take action. Mind is wandering? The little light brings us back to our own power to make change.

Once we’ve made sure that all the teachers on campus have these items, we’re ready to begin our silent practice.

4. Meeting for Worship 101

There is one final thing that is perhaps the most important preparation... My Quaker Education committee partner and I teach Meeting for Worship 101 to everyone at school. We host each grade level individually (ie. the entire 4th grade and their classroom teachers join us for their version of the course and we work our way through each grade level).  We use the first two weeks of school to lead each grade level through this course. Everyone participates whether they are new to school or have been here since prekindergarten

This is an opportunity to refresh our practice. The course is a 30 minute session in which we:

• Review why Quakers meet in silence (a smidge of Quaker history), 

• Teach (re-teach) how we travel to, join, and participate in our Meetings (these are the behavior expectations), 

• Share a little bit about what we’re doing (this is the spiritual stuff - listening to our still small voice, settling into silence, etc.). 

• And review the centering table and what is on it, how to clerk (our students clerk our meetings), and how to read the query should it be your job to do that (clear, strong, slow and steady (no racing please) voice)

It’s important that faculty and staff join these courses so that they can “grab” the language and the ideas. Hopefully, they will feel that they can then take those back and continue the teaching on their own.

Now that I’ve cleared that off my to do list, back to a little last bit of summer… See you in August!

Want a little more? Here are some teaching videos that my partner and I made a few years ago.

Meeting for Worship

Centering Table - This video was created to support Meeting for worship during the beginning of the pandemic when we were at home.

A Query from the kindergarteners...

At our school, classes take turns writing queries to share with the larger community. We write queries to illuminate issues that bubble up as we learn and grow together. It may that we are personally experiencing something that sparks an idea for a query or it may be that inspiration comes from outside - from what might be happening in our neighbors, cities, or the world.

To begin the year, my kindergartners (the Marigolds and Dandelions) brought the idea for our first query. Here is a brief description of that process...

We took on a large job to end our week and wrote the first Query of the school year. I shared with the Marigolds & Dandelions that I was in need of a class to volunteer to write the first query of the year. A query is a Quaker kind of a question. It gives us something to think about and use as a tool to help us as we seek ways that we might grow, help each other, or help our community. I told them that I was listening last week as they shared ideas about our stories, played with each, and worked to solve a difference in opinion around a block building. I noticed some interesting and beautiful ideas that felt like the beginning of a query to me. A few friends in the block corner were working together and I heard one Marigold say, “If we work together, we could do it better.” During a read aloud, another Marigold shared her idea about cooperation and said, “We can do it on our own and we can do it together.” This line between being independent and being capable despite our small physical size and being able and open to someone else's ideas is one that we will "walk" all year long in our kindergarten journey. 

I wrote their words on the white board. Friends added their own thoughts and ideas. The trend towards being able to do stuff for ourselves but also exploring working together kept going. I told the Marigolds & Dandelions that if I rearranged their words so that they ask a question, we might have a pretty good query. I wrote “Even though we can do it on our own, what might happen if we do it together?” The children thought about whether we should ask what might happen vs. what could happen. The difference in words was briefly debated. 

We considered whether or not this was a query that we would feel good about sharing with the whole school community. (We do.) The children immediately began to come up with answers to this big question which suggested it might be just right. And that is how the Marigolds & Dandelions wrote the first Lower School Query of 2023-24!

Query for September 15, 2023

Even though we can do it on our own, what might happen if we do it together?

Marigolds & Dandelions

An added note about our Lower School queries: Classes and groups of children/adults will write queries for the community throughout the year. During this process, the children share their thinking through brainstorming, connecting, being inspired by each other’s ideas, and (in our case) allowing me to sum up, rephrase, and offer some vocabulary advice. Each class has their own process, however there are many similarities, varying by age and developmental phases.

How do we explain Quaker Meeting for Worship?

It's a new school year here on the East Coast of the United States and we have welcomed a new group of students, learners, educators, families, and caregivers to our school community. Some members of our community have Friends school experience and many are experiencing this way of growing, learning, and reflecting together for the first time. As the faculty and staff gather to plan and set our course for the year, the question always arises, "what is Meeting for Worship and how do I teach it?"

Here is some language that we use in our community as a beginning or an opening...

Meeting for Worship at Sidwell Friends Lower School

Sidwell Friends School has Meeting for Worship as a part of its curriculum, believing in its important contribution to the school community. Even the youngest students are taught how to use moments of silence effectively.

 

Quaker Meeting for Worship is silent.  No one leads the group in ceremony.  Quakers believe people can guide themselves toward their own truth, and that silence is the context in which this process can occur.  A first-time observer of an adult Quaker Meeting for Worship might say, “Nothing is happening. They just sit there.” Likewise, a visitor to a Lower School Meeting for Worship might say, “The children are wiggling. They can’t possibly be getting anything out of this.”  Is there more happening than meets the eye?  Is the effort one must make to reach silence worth it?  We believe it is.

 

On e morning each week, the entire Lower School is engaged in meeting for worship for a period of about twenty minutes (the Middle and Upper School also have their dedicated time for Meeting for Worship weekly, for 45 - 60 minutes). During the Meeting for Worship, the teachers or a student clerk will read a current query.  Queries are open-ended questions which are stated simply and have many possible answers. Classes take turns carefully formulating a query for the entire school to consider and reflect upon.  Sometimes the teacher may choose to read a story or poem to their class before or during the silence in order to give the children an idea to focus on.  But the silence is also cherished for its own power. We learn that sometimes the silence is the message.

 

In addition to the weekly Meeting for Worship, each class begins each day with a period of silence.  During these times teachers help children become comfortable with silence and encourage them to make good use of it.  Simply establishing silence for a few moments is quite a powerful accomplishment for any class of 4 -10 year olds. Central to the purpose of a meeting for worship is an acceptance of what another individual believes is important. This idea has a powerful trickle over (trickle on... trickle through... ) effect into other areas of teaching and learning for our students and faculty. Meeting for Worship ends when a previously selected member of the group (student clerk) turns to a neighbor, puts their hand to their chest and then waves at or shakes their hand. We strive to make a purposeful moment of eye contact with our neighbor in order to re-connect ourselves joyfully and with a stronger sense of community.

 

A few details about our Faith & Practice:

 

As Robert Smith describes in The Quaker Book of Wisdom: 

 

“Friends believe that each individual has access to God through the powerful illumination of the light within, they worship in silence, joined in waiting for God to speak to them directly…”  

 

Meeting for Worship is a time for listening to that still small voice for vocal ministry, as opposed to sharing “whatever is on your mind". Quakers are waiting for messages from God that might give the Meeting something to learn or grow from. What aspect of your faith identity might be your still small voice? We hold a long silence between messages to give them (the message) time to “settle.”

  

Notes around our expectations for and of Meeting for Worship:

*Meeting begins as soon as the first person sits down – silence should grow from that.

*We are sharing active silence and expectant waiting as we wait to receive a message that is appropriate for the group – something we can all connect with or learn from.

*The reason we face inwardly is so that no one member of the group is the teacher/minister – we are in community together – we are all potential teachers/ministers.

*Someone will serve as clerk to close the Meeting with the transfer from heart to hand, indicating to others that they should also wave, smile, make purposeful eye contact with each other.