Dear Friends,
As you hopefully already know, we will have a special event for the Transition Team after Semi-Programmed Worship this week. There will be a carry-in lunch and members of the Transition Team will be facilitating conversations around queries. In worship and this event, the meeting will be reflecting on the “heritage” focus point.
I am really looking forward to the ways the Transition Team is going to engage the meeting, and I have been learning a lot about the history of New Garden Friends! Hiram H. Hilty’s book has been especially helpful. It’s called, New Garden Friends Meeting: The Christian People Called Quakers, first published in 1983 and revised and expanded in 2001.
Reading this book, I learned that the first Friends to worship at New Garden sat on logs when they met. (10) And that the New Garden cemetery has American and British soldiers from the Revolutionary War as well as Confederate soldiers and at least one Union soldier from the Civil War. (40) I also read that in 1784, the meetinghouse, which had served as a field hospital for injured soldiers, was “laid waist by fire.” (24)
The history of the meeting is more than just fun facts—it helps us to know where New Garden has been and how the meeting came to be the way it is now. I hope that you will engage with the Transition Team this week and throughout this time of transition. This work will strengthen the community and give New Garden a clear sense of what kind of person will be the best fit in a settled pastor.
Blessings, Ashley
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336-338-1986
Office Hours: Monday from 2-4 p.m. and by appointment