Shrewsbury Monthly Meeting
Encyclopedia
The Shrewsbury Monthly Meeting is a monthly meeting
in the New York Yearly Meeting
of the Religious Society of Friends
.
every Sunday starting at 10:30 a.m. for approximately one hour.
The Meeting follows the "unprogrammed" or Hicksite
tradition, in which those who attend Meeting for Worship gather in quiet to pray or meditate, and can remain so unless someone feels moved by "The Light Within" to give a message to the assembled body. Like other unprogrammed meetings, the Meeting has no single minister who leads the worship or gives sermons, and music is not a customary part of worship.
The Meeting holds a Meeting for Worship with a Concern for Business on the second Sunday of the month, shortly after the end of Meeting for Worship, in which business affairs are discussed and decisions made through a "sense of the Meeting". A Pot Luck Luncheon is held on the fourth Sunday, and committee meetings are held on other Sundays.
-speaking settlers from Rhode Island and Long Island, and the Shrewsbury meeting both the oldest Quaker meeting and the oldest continuously existing religious group in New Jersey. Friends held meeting for worship in their homes until the first meetinghouse was built near what is now the New Jersey Transit station in Little Silver, N.J. A new meetinghouse was built in 1672 after property was purchased from John Lippincott at what is now the northeast corner of Sycamore Avenue and State Highway 35 in Shrewsbury, New Jersey
That same year the Meeting was visited by George Fox
, the founder of Quakerism, in the first week of July during a tour he made of the English colonies from the Carolinas to New England.. Fox led at least two meetings for worship then, including one that drew Quakers from most of New Jersey.
The current meetinghouse was built in 1816 of wood timber frame construction and brick, possibly salvaged from the previous meetinghouse building.
There is another Quaker Meeting named the Shrewsbury Meeting for Worship in Shrewsbury, UK, which is part of Britain Yearly Meeting
.
Monthly meeting
Monthly Meetings are, traditionally, the basic unit of administration in the Religious Society of Friends .For some Friends a Monthly Meeting is a single Meeting , while for others it is a grouping of Meetings which come together for administrative purposes. Membership in the Religious Society of...
in the New York Yearly Meeting
New York Yearly Meeting
New York Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, or simply New York Yearly Meeting or NYYM, is the central organizing body for Quaker meetings and worship groups in New York State, northern and central New Jersey, and southwestern Connecticut....
of the Religious Society of Friends
Religious Society of Friends
The Religious Society of Friends, or Friends Church, is a Christian movement which stresses the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Members are known as Friends, or popularly as Quakers. It is made of independent organisations, which have split from one another due to doctrinal differences...
.
Meetings for Worship
The Meeting holds Meeting for WorshipMeeting for worship
A meeting for worship is a practice of the Religious Society of Friends in many ways comparable to a church service. These services have a wide variety of forms, creating a spectrum from typical Protestant liturgy to silent waiting for the Spirit .A Meeting for Worship may start with a query;...
every Sunday starting at 10:30 a.m. for approximately one hour.
The Meeting follows the "unprogrammed" or Hicksite
Religious Society of Friends
The Religious Society of Friends, or Friends Church, is a Christian movement which stresses the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Members are known as Friends, or popularly as Quakers. It is made of independent organisations, which have split from one another due to doctrinal differences...
tradition, in which those who attend Meeting for Worship gather in quiet to pray or meditate, and can remain so unless someone feels moved by "The Light Within" to give a message to the assembled body. Like other unprogrammed meetings, the Meeting has no single minister who leads the worship or gives sermons, and music is not a customary part of worship.
The Meeting holds a Meeting for Worship with a Concern for Business on the second Sunday of the month, shortly after the end of Meeting for Worship, in which business affairs are discussed and decisions made through a "sense of the Meeting". A Pot Luck Luncheon is held on the fourth Sunday, and committee meetings are held on other Sundays.
History
The Meeting was founded in 1665 by EnglishEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
-speaking settlers from Rhode Island and Long Island, and the Shrewsbury meeting both the oldest Quaker meeting and the oldest continuously existing religious group in New Jersey. Friends held meeting for worship in their homes until the first meetinghouse was built near what is now the New Jersey Transit station in Little Silver, N.J. A new meetinghouse was built in 1672 after property was purchased from John Lippincott at what is now the northeast corner of Sycamore Avenue and State Highway 35 in Shrewsbury, New Jersey
Shrewsbury, New Jersey
Shrewsbury is a borough in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 3,809....
That same year the Meeting was visited by George Fox
George Fox
George Fox was an English Dissenter and a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers or Friends.The son of a Leicestershire weaver, Fox lived in a time of great social upheaval and war...
, the founder of Quakerism, in the first week of July during a tour he made of the English colonies from the Carolinas to New England.. Fox led at least two meetings for worship then, including one that drew Quakers from most of New Jersey.
The current meetinghouse was built in 1816 of wood timber frame construction and brick, possibly salvaged from the previous meetinghouse building.
Activities
Every Sunday, at the finish or "rise" of Meeting for Worship, some Friends choose to gather at the corner of the two nearby streets and hold a "Witness for Peace," a short vigil in which Friends hold signs promoting peace.Relationships to other Quaker Meetings
The Meeting also is a member of the Shrewsbury-Plainfield Half-Yearly Meeting, along with three other Quaker meetings in central New Jersey: Manasquan Monthly Meeting, New Brunswick Monthly Meeting and Rahway-Plainfield Monthly Meeting. Friends from all four meetings meet twice a year to worship together and discuss topics of interest to all four meetings.There is another Quaker Meeting named the Shrewsbury Meeting for Worship in Shrewsbury, UK, which is part of Britain Yearly Meeting
Britain Yearly Meeting
The Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends in Britain, also known as Britain Yearly Meeting , is a religious organisation in England, Scotland, Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, often defined as a denomination of Christianity.It is a part of the international religious...
.
External links
- http://www.shrewsburyquakers.org: Website of the Shrewsbury Monthly Meeting, Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), Shrewsbury, NJ.
- http://www.strecorsoc.org/gfox/ch18.html: GEORGE FOX - An Autobiography, CHAPTER XVIII. Two Years in America. 1671-1673
- http://www.plainfieldquakers.org/history/regen2.asp: Friends for Three Hundred Years: Part Two of a lecture series entitled: Quakerism - its Origin, Development, Testimonies and Activities, written and presented to the Plainfield, NJ Friends' Adult Class on April 26, 1970 by Curt Regen, accessed 24 September 2011