Monthly meeting

Monthly Meetings are, traditionally, the basic unit of administration in the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). The term "Monthly Meeting" comes from the Quaker practice of holding a monthly Meeting for Business, separate from Meeting for Worship which is usually held once a week on Sunday.

For some Friends (Quakers) a Monthly Meeting is a single Meeting (church), while for others it is a grouping of Meetings (churches) which come together for administrative purposes. Membership in the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) is with a Monthly Meeting. Monthly Meetings are charged with the bulk of administrative and sometimes also the pastoral care of their associated congregants.

Friends' (Quaker) organizational structure is complicated and varies from place to place, but in many cases, Monthly Meetings are grouped for various purposes into Quarterly Meetings, which themselves are grouped into Yearly Meetings. In places where Quakers are few, there may be no Quarterly meeting. In some places, e.g. Korea or Russia, the largest administrative unit is the Monthly Meeting which encompasses several other Meetings around the country.

In Britain Yearly Meeting, Monthly Meetings are in the process renaming themselves as "Area Meetings". This is because British Meetings for Church Affairs seldom gather twelve times a year and the name "Monthly Meeting" does not convey much meaning to outsiders. The process hopes, among other things to reduce "Quakerspeak" jargon. However, among Friends (Quakers) the term "Monthly Meeting" will continue to be used for that administrative Meeting for some considerable time, as it has been for the past 350 years. From 2007, an Area Quaker Meeting is primarily a business meeting for a particular geographic area, and contains a number of local meetings which hold regular Meetings for Worship.

A noteworthy practice of Friends is that all administrative and business decisions must be made in a Meeting for Worship (church services). Thus Monthly Meetings, Area Meetings, Quarterly Meetings, Yearly Meetings and larger gatherings of Friends are all Meetings for Worship. Decisions are made prayerfully. Decisions are made by unanimity. Friends' unanimity should not be confused with a secular consensus. Friends' unanimity is spirit based and the finding of unanimity emerges from Friends worshiping together (see also Quaker decision-making).

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