Who Can Start a Meeting? – You Can!
Keep It Simple
Why Register?
There is no one right way to start. All you need is more than one person and a venue. This can be someone’s home or a room in a church, chapel or other place.
The main requirement for a Julian Meeting is that there should be a substantial period of silence. The most usual length is 30 minutes. It should not be less than 20 minutes and can be as long as the meeting decides.
If there is already a Julian Meeting near you it will be helpful to visit and/or speak to their contact person. See our Meeting Map.
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.
When you are ready you can register your meeting with us.
Registration is free but we hope you will make a donation to help cover the costs of maintaining the JM Network. We suggest at least £12 a year. Please also encourage your members to donate.
Your Meeting will be displayed on our Meeting Map. Enquirers will be given contact details. You can also include information on the map entry.
A monthly email is sent with details of blog posts published during the previous month and any JM news and essential information. You can share this with your members.
Advertise your meeting and quiet days on our blog, on Facebook and Twitter.
Your Meeting will benefit from general publicity generated by National Council.
Help and support from the Julian Meeting community.
As part of our network your meeting will be invited to participate in the ongoing development of JM.
Your registration helps promote ecumenical, non denominational Christian Meditation and Contemplative Prayer.
About Meeting in a Church or other Religious Building
This advice was offered by one of our Council members on potential issues related to meeting in a Church, in this case a Cathedral, and registering the meeting through the Church. These suggestions are appropriate wherever the meeting happens. The main problems occur when the meeting is registered through the Church and the first and second contacts are clergy or parish staff.
“When a group of us decided to set up a Julian Meeting, although we were mostly Cathedral ‘people’ and were able to advertise the meeting easily in the Cathedral, we held the meeting in various homes because:-
1 We wanted to meet in the evening and that made access at the building more difficult (as well as parking)
2 There are no suitable ‘enclosed’ spaces in this cathedral
3 We were clear that it should be seen as an ecumenical group and we wanted a certain independence so that we could not be closed down at the whim of any future Dean and Chapter!
So we had a freedom that some groups who meet on church premises (whatever kind of church) do not have.
Of course there are many groups who meet very successfully on church premises and it is helpful that the meetings can be added to their church website information.
Julian Groups have always been ecumenical and at a Cathedral that is much easier to hold to than in some smaller churches where the building is clearly of one denomination and there may be a perception that it is ‘a methodist group ‘ or whatever.
But if you have goodwill and an appropriate space then a cathedral with its openness and inclusivity is a good space to offer an opportunity to simply ‘be’ in the company of a group of like-minded folk. And a Cathedral is much more likely to be open in the daytime than many churches (sadly).
The biggest issue for us, if we had met on the premises in the day time, would have been the clash with the cathedral’s very varied diary commitments especially rehearsals for events!”
Does this mean we cannot meet in our Church or register the Meeting to the Church?
Not at all. It just means there can be issues that need thinking about. In particular in respect of the principles of lay leadership and non-demoninational/ecumenical independence of the Meeting .
Resources and Information
Below are our resources specifically for Meetings. Links to all our resources for personal and group prayer and meetings are collected together on the Resources and Guidance page. You can also find them on the ‘About’ and ‘Contemplative Prayer and Meditation’ pages.
Our booklets are very useful for Meetings – ‘The Ideal Julian Meeting’, ‘It’s Your Turn to Lead the Silence’, ‘Going Into Silence and Coming Out’ They can also be listened to in our SoundCloud account.
Waiting on God in the Silence – our introductory leaflet
Brief guidance on how to download, edit and print the editable documents is here
Printable A5 leaflet with space to edit and include your meeting details. Download here You must download and save the doc to your computer for the edit function to work.
Printable A5 leaflet pdf with space to write or attach a label with your meeting details Download here
Listen here Buy printed copies from the shop.
Miscellaneous Publicity resources for Meetings
A4 Poster Trailing Flower Download or buy from our shop
A4 Poster Blue Box Download or buy from out shop
Articles. to help publicise your Meeting. Please feel free to adapt as appropriate for your circumstances.
‘Be Still and Know’ editable Word doc
Privacy
Your information will only be used to:
Mail the magazine and newsletter to you.
Give access to any account or private area on our website.
Mail information to you or keep in touch with your Julian Meeting.
Provide contact details for those looking for a Julian Meeting in your area. (We usually inform you that we have given out your details)
Provide contact details for other Julian Meetings in your region, wishing to organise a joint event.