Westport Meeting News:
Christmas Eve Service, Sunday, December 24, 2023
Please join us for our traditional Christmas Eve Worship Service at 7 PM in the Meetinghouse, or on Zoom. Christmas Hymns, selected readings and a period of silent worship are traditional parts of this special worship service. All are welcome to attend! For those with us in person, hospitality, with light refreshments and punch, will follow in the Community House.
Read or Print 2023 Christmas Eve Program
What to bring? We ask that Friends bring a sweet treat or goodie to share during
hospitality. Our traditional punch, coffee, and teas, will be provided by Meeting.
Can you Help? Volunteers for clean-up are needed to help put away tables and chairs and put the hall and kitchen to rights following hospitality. (We expect that parents with younger children need to head home immediately following hospitality.)
Joining us on Zoom? Please check the Christmas Eve Service email sent to our membership on Dec 19. Or, email Kevin and I’ll send the Zoom link to you.
(All meetings held in person, via Zoom, or hybrid (meaning in-person and via Zoom), as noted)
- Worship each Sunday in meetinghouse and via Zoom at 10am (hybrid)
- Christmas Eve Worship Service, Sunday, Dec 24 at 7 PM. Details above
- Midweek Meeting for Worship, Wed, Dec 27, 3:30-4pm. Via Zoom
- Westport Meeting Trustees Meeting, 7:00 PM via Zoom
- Midweek Meeting for Worship, Wed, Jan 3, 3:30-4pm. Via Zoom
- NEYM: Meeting Leaders Call, Tues, Jan 9, 7-8 PM
- Midweek Meeting for Worship, Wed, Jan 10, 3:30-4pm. via Zoom
- Peace & Social Justice, Mon, Jan 14 at 8:30 – 10 AM (via Gretchen’s Zoom act.)
- Ministry and Counsel, Monday, Jan 16, 7-8:30 PM
- Midweek Meeting for Worship, Wed, Jan 17, 3:30-4pm. Via Zoom.
- Monthly Meeting for Business, Sunday, Jan 21, at 8am Via Zoom
- Seekers Group, Monday, Jan 22, 7-8:30 PM. HYBRID
- NEYM “Living Faith Gathering,” Dartmouth, MA, April 6. DETAILS
MIDWEEK WORSHIP, via Zoom, WEDNESDAYS, 3:30-4:00pm. (Kevin sends link day of)
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New England Yearly Meeting/Wider Quaker News:
NEYM’s December 2023 Newsletter may be read HERE.
Introduction
Save the date: Young Friends Midwinter
Friends decision-making workshop
Young adult Friends Midwinter
Gathering for Friends with a concern for Gospel ministry
Save the date: Living Faith
Sessions news
Our hopes for this newsletter
We’re hiring!
Workshops sought for Living Faith
Reconciliation leadership workshop offering
Work at Friends Camp
Legacy grantee survey
Bodine-Rustin nominations wanted
ARCH News
Israel-Palestine presentation video
Ramallah students write Congress
Bolivian young Friends provide food relief
Quaker e-books
For youth from K to 8th grade
Quakers in the news
A last word
- Daily at 8:30 a.m.: Daily Worship at Pendle Hill
- Weekdays at 10:30 a.m., Portland Friends Meeting: Waiting Worship
- Daily at noon: International Meeting for Worship
- Alternate Thursdays at 4 p.m., Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL): Thursdays with Friends
- Thursdays at 7 p.m.: Taizé worship
- Thursdays at 8 p.m.: Parents’ Tea-and-Chat
NEYM Living Faith Gathering, April 6, 2024.
Living Faith Gatherings bring together Quakers from across New England to strengthen connections between Friends of different generations and from different meetings, nourish spirits, and provide an opportunity to share the ways we experience and live our faith. We hope Living Faith gatherings will be an opportunity to equip individual Friends and local meetings with resources, tools, and connections to more fully live our faith. (from NEYM website) DETAILS.
Dec 12
Jan 9
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Sandwich Quarterly Meeting
East Sandwich
New Year’s Eve potluck and meeting for worship. The meeting house will be lit with only candles and oil lamps and heated by a wood stove. Potluck: 5:00 to 7:00, meeting for worship: 7:00.
Quarter Meeting for Business-Mattapoisett
Saturday, January 27
9:30 coffee and greetings
10:00 business meeting will start with a half hour worship
One of the things discussed will be the need to formulate a Working Committee to coordinate with NEYM planners of the Living Faith Gathering to be held on April 6 at Friends Academy in Dartmouth.
Post- lunch presentation by John Rider: “Doing Right by the Right Whale.”
After a history of Quaker involvement in the hunting of the now critically endangered North Atlantic Right Whale, what is being done, and what can be done to help them recover and thrive?
Quarter Calendar
Meeting for business:
January 27 at Mattapoisett
April 27 at Dartmouth/Smith Neck
July 27 at New Bedford
October 26 at Westport
Meetings start at 10:00 am– most likely hybrid, but will be coordinated with each meeting. Meet for coffee and greetings at 9:30
Ministry & Counsel
March 23 at E. Sandwich Preparative Meeting
September 28 at Mattapoisett
Meetings start at 10:00 am.
Living Faith Gathering
NEYM is coordinating a Living Faith Gathering to be held at Friends Academy in Dartmouth on April 6, 20024. Would Friends like to be part of a committee and volunteer? Possible help may be needed finding coordinators for workshops that the program organizers approve or finding Friends to host traveling Friends.
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Quaker Programs, Study, Retreats, and Spiritual Nurture:
QuakerSpeak (Our Quaker faith as shared by those who experience it firsthand, every day, via weekly video interviews)
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Closing:
IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER
In the bleak mid-winter, the frosty wind did moan
The earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone
Snow had fallen softly, snow on snow on snow
In the bleak mid-winter, oh so long ago
Our God, heaven cannot hold Him nor the earth sustain
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign
In the bleak mid-winter a stable place sufficed
For the Lord almighty, Jesus Christ
Oh what can I give Him, woeful as I am
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb
If I were a wiseman, oh I would do my part
Yet, what can I give Him
I will give my heart
Oh what can I give Him
I will give my heart
– Lyrics by Dan fogelberg
(Original Music by Christina Rossetti)
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Thank you, Friends,
Kevin