Quaker community born of lockdown marks 1001 nights of online worship
Unlike Scheherazade's husband, Quakers attending Lighthouse Epilogue are unlikely to execute anyone. But something in the online meeting has kept them coming back for the mythical 1001 nights, with many more to come.
The daily evening worship was first held at the beginning of the coronavirus lockdown in April 2020, following multiple requests from Quakers for spiritual support.
Started by Quaker Life, there was no initial intention of creating an online community, but over the months one has evolved with a strong core of 20 attending every night from 9-9:15pm, including two Friends joining by telephone.
Now Quaker Life staff feel encouraged that the Epilogue will offer clues in how to set up and sustain non-geographic communities as Zoom and other technologies open new pathways to worship.
The meeting is semi-programmed with participants bringing spiritual offerings to share in the silence, with space for conversation at the end.
Pip Harris, former local development worker for Southwest England, said: “I still have people say to me that it's not possible to have a spiritual connection online, and if it is then you have to have met the other people beforehand.
[QUOTE-START]
We have a community here which feels very centred and very strong.
- Pip Harris
[QUOTE-END]
“But we have a community here which feels very centred and very strong."
Dubbed the Lighthouse Epilogue, relied upon to shine out every evening, the community is now largely self-sufficient, with occasional support of Northwest England local development worker Wendy Hampton.
But Pip Harris said that having a core group, like Quaker Life, to support non-geographic communities was vital in their initial stages.
“We held an event at Woodbrooke to explore non-geographic communities and shared experience with other regular online Quaker meetings who were quite intrigued to hear how we did things. We really hope to share what we learnt more widely," she said.
Last year Quakers in Britain were awarded £200,000 over three years by Benefact Trust to support Quaker communities and meetings to thrive, whether online or in-person.
They joined two other grant-making trusts, Bader Philanthropies and WF Southall, who support local development work with grants of £100,000 each over two years.