Pastoral Care Initiatives

Helping Hands

Pastoral Care members and second circle Friends are scheduling rides and assistance to Annapolis Friends who might need a little help to take care of life tasks. If you NEED assistance to go to medical appointments, purchase groceries or other emergency needs, call or text Jack Hogsten 410-533-5682 (cell).

If you are willing to GIVE assistance to Friends in need, also please call or text Jack, letting us know your availability. When a request comes in, he will call the Care Team to see who might be able to step up for various requests.

Friendly 8s

Friendly 8s is a Quaker Tradition around area Monthly Meetings. It is a gathering of eight or fewer Annapolis Friends, as well as family members or partners who may not be active in AFM, to dine together and enjoy conversation. Each September, Pastoral Care sends requests for interest and then groups responders so we can get to know one another better. The groups self organize, often meeting monthly from Oct.through spring. We have two groups this year, mostly meeting by zoom. If you would like to join, get in touch with pastoral-care@annapolisfriends.org.

Fifth Night Light List

Our Fifth Night Light List evolved from healing meetings for worship held at Annapolis Friends Meeting on the evening of Fifth Day (Thursdays). After several months of in-person meetings, the Pastoral Care Committee learned that people were having difficulty attending weekly meetings. Instead a weekly email, the Fifth Night Light List, began as a way to hold in healing, loving Light those in need because of illness, death or other life circumstances.

The Pastoral Care Committee invites you to share in Fifth Night Light each week, pausing sometime between 7 and 8 p.m. to hold all our friends at AFM in the Light. We open our hearts to all those we love, and those we do not know, who could use the embrace of the Light.

Names may be offered for holding in the Light by the person who needs it, or by a friend who has permission to ask for Light for another. Names will remain on the Fifth Night Light list for one month unless Pastoral Care hears otherwise. We hope this list will offer an opportunity for us to communally care for one another through prayer/the Light. Requests for in-person Meetings for Worship for Healing may also be requested through the Pastoral Care Committee.

Clearness Committees

A Clearness Committee offers Annapolis Friends Meeting members or regular attenders a safe and confidential space where one can air matters of serious personal significance, both large and small. If you are facing a major life event; trying to resolve a conflict; or simply seeking a safe space in which to examine an important personal, professional or spiritual decision, consider bringing it privately to the attention of a Pastoral Care Committee member to determine if a Clearness Committee is the right alternative for you.

Parker Palmer notes: “Behind the Clearness Committee is a simple but crucial conviction: each of us has an inner teacher, a truth voice, that offers the guidance and peace we need to deal with our problems.  …because that inner voice can be obscured by both inward and outward interference, the function of the Clearness Committee is to help remove that interference so one can better discover one’s own wisdom...”.

Contact pastoral-care@annapolisfriends.org to work with you to find Clearness Committee members you are comfortable with and are right for your concern.

*Note: Clearness for membership or for ministry is handled by AFM’s Ministry and Worship Committee.

Spiritual Friendship Groups

Spiritual Friendship Groups derive from Baltimore Yearly Meeting’s Spiritual Formation Program, which convenes area-wide each fall. From that retreat, local groups form, meeting monthly to share their spiritual journeys, provide spiritual support, and build community. They are open to anyone affiliated with Annapolis Friends Meeting (AFM).

AFM has two in progress currently. One meets the second Thursday of each month at 4 pm on zoom these days. The other meets on the fourth Saturday of each month at 10:30 am as a “hybrid” both in person on the Meeting House patio and on zoom. For more information, contact pastoral-care@annapolisfriends.org. Links for both are on the AFM Calendar. Attending Spiritual Formation is not a pre-requisite.

Suffering and Individual Emergency Fund

Use of this grant rests upon the Pastoral Care Committee’s recognition of a personal emergency need within the AFM community of members and attenders. Disbursement authority is through consultation with clerks of Meeting, Stewardship and Finance and Pastoral Care.