Ministry & Pastoral Care

The Ministry and Pastoral Care Committee is concerned with deepening the spiritual life of Yearly Meeting by calling forth and nurturing gifts of the Spirit, supporting and assisting the Yearly Meeting with programs, retreats, workshops, activities at Annual Session, and other activities as needed; the clerk of the Committee serves as a member of the Program Committee.

The Committee developed a new description of our work for the Manual of Procedure. Through this process, we became clear that we need more time to worship together; we must be well grounded in the Spirit if we are to provide assistance to others. While we seek way forward for periodic weekend-long committee retreats, we have begun with what seems manageable: a two-hour retreat before our meetings on Committee Meeting Days has allowed us to deepen spiritual fellowship and grow our reliance on Spirit to guide us. We intend to continue this important expansion of our practice, allowing us time to pray, worship, share with one another. Continue reading →

The Ministry and Pastoral Care Committee is concerned with deepening the spiritual life of Baltimore Yearly Meeting by calling forth and nurturing the gifts of the Spirit in the Yearly Meeting and supporting and assisting the Yearly Meeting with programs, retreats, workshops, activities at Annual Session, and other activities as needed; the clerk of Ministry and Pastoral Care Committee serves as a member of the Program Committee.

The Ministry and Pastoral Care Committee sponsored a one-day workshop for concerned Friends and attenders from various Meetings to gather at Frederick Meeting on April 18 of this year for the sharing of concerns and experiences of pastoral care. Topics included caring for the elderly, sick, and dying, nurturing centeredness in Meeting for Worship, and community building and conflict in the Meeting. These topics will be offered again as a series of three workshops at Yearly Meeting sessions 2009. The committee is hoping to offer more workshops in the future in different areas of the Yearly Meeting. Some suggested topics arising from this first workshop are parenting adult children, marriage enrichment, managing ongoing conflict (ex. within a family, within a community), sexual abuse, domestic violence, membership issues, mental health issues. Another suggestion from the workshop was to place policies (child safety, Meetings pastoral care handbook, etc.) and resources on the BYM webpage so that meetings could easily access them.
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