Welcome to Richmond!
As you settle into life and work at ESR/Bethany, you'll hear a lot about
Quakers or Friends. West Richmond Friends is one of the three Quaker
congregations or meetings in town. The others are Clear Creek Meeting and First
Friends. We welcome you to worship, study, and fellowship with us – as well as
to support you on your path of exploration of spirit and faith.
(All photos courtesy of Josh Brown at West Richmond Friends)
Many
of the Quaker faculty, staff and students at Earlham and ESR worship with at
West Richmond Friends. Our meetinghouse is located just two blocks north of
ESR/Bethany (click here for map). Cross
National Road, then turn onto SW 7th Street. Two blocks ahead you'll
find our meetinghouse at the corner of SW 7th and West Main Streets.
Come in any door – most of us actually treat the side door on SW 7th
Street door as the “front” of our meetinghouse.
Please
visit our meeting web site, www.westrichmondfriends.org. You can read recent
messages from our meeting for worship, find out more about our meeting,
download resource materials, and link to Quakers around the world.
Our
worship is at 9:30 a.m. on Sundays. West Richmond is a "semi-programmed"
meeting. Our worship typically includes a Bible reading, hymns, a short
prepared message, and 15-20 minutes of quiet open worship. (When there are five
Sundays in a month, the fifth one is reserved for completely unprogrammed
worship.) Child care is available in the nursery. Following worship we have
coffee and light snacks until 11:00, when our second hour for education begins.
Classes start on September 9th.
There’s
a lot of diversity of voices in the messages at our worship, including
messages from the pastoral minister, professors and students from Earlham and
ESR, special guest speakers, and members of the Meeting who have messages to
share. We have a great choir which sings at worship about twice each
month – singers of all levels of experience are welcome!
Many
ESRniks enjoy coming here on Friday evenings at 7:00 for Common Grounds
Coffeehouse which offers a varied program of live music, game nights and
monthly contra dances. We will be starting our 9th season on Friday, September
7th with a contra dance with caller Jim Sizelove and live music.
Joshua
Brown (ESR '84)
serves as pastoral minister at West Richmond Friends. He will leading a
workshop at ESR October 1 on "Pastoral Leadership Among Friends" as
part of the 2012 Pastor's Conference. He was an adjunct faculty member from
1997-1999, and has also served for many years as a supervisor for field
education.
Several
years ago, West Richmond Friends openly declared ourselves as a welcoming and
affirming congregation to all people, including gays and lesbians. Our
meeting's positive stand on this issue has unfortunately caused a great deal of
controversy and conflict in some parts of the Quaker world here in the Midwest.
Besides
our worship, we have a large and active education program on Sundays at
11:00. In addition to classes for different age groups of children, this year
we’re offering several adult classes:
•
Marcelle
Martin will lead The Quaker Spiritual Journal: Early Friends and Today.
A former teacher at Pendle Hill, Marcelle is the author of Invitation to a
Deeper Communion and Holding One Another in the Light.
•
Welling
Hall is leading a group about consumerism, based on Not Buying It: My
Year Without Shopping by Judith Levine.
•
Josh
Brown will lead The Bible for Dummies, a lively class with lots
of free-ranging discussion.
Our meeting is also home to Richmond Friends School, a small but vibrant
K-5 school located next door to our meetinghouse.
Don’t see what you want? Start a new group
– we want our space and equipment to be used! Our meetinghouse has been used
for exercise and dance classes, meditation and yoga groups, retreats and
overnights, club and department meals, and much more.
Again,
welcome to Richmond. Best wishes, and see you soon!
West Richmond Friends
Meeting
609 West Main Street
Richmond, IN 47374
(765) 962-4485
Sunday worship 9:30
am
Sunday school 11:00
am
Office hours Tuesday
– Friday mornings 9:30-12:30
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