Reviving Queer Worship: A Journey Through Time and Community

A Quaker author chat. R.E. Martin and Jason A. Terry’s “Advices and Que[e]ries: Chosen Family and Chosen Ancestors,” appears in the October 2025 issue of Friends Journal.

This conversation explores the revival of the Queer Worship Group at Friends Meeting of Washington (D.C.), highlighting its purpose, benefits, and the importance of creating an inclusive spiritual community. R.E. Martin and Jason Terry discuss the historical context of the group, the need for affinity spaces, and the intergenerational connections fostered within the community. They emphasize the welcoming nature of the group and its role in supporting individuals from diverse backgrounds, particularly those who have felt marginalized in traditional religious settings.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the Queer Worship Group
02:25 The Purpose and Benefits of Affinity Groups
04:30 Reconnecting with History and Community
06:50 Creating an Inclusive Space for All
09:03 The Importance of Intergenerational Connections
11:34 Inviting New Members and Future Growth

Bios

R.E. Martin (he/him) and Jason A. Terry (he/they) are members of Friends Meeting of Washington (D.C.) where they are co-conveners of the Queer Worship Group. R.E. works to expand access for people with disabilities, and Jason is a poet who earns their keep as a humanitarian.

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Transcript

Martin Kelley:

Hi, I’m Martin Kelley with Friends Journal and we’re having another author chat. And with me today is Ari Martin and Jason Terry, who have an article in the October issue called Advices and Queries, Chosen Family and Chosen Ancestors. So welcome Ari, welcome Jason.

R.E. Martin:

Thank you so much.

Jason Terry:

Thanks for having us here.

Martin Kelley:

Yeah, so let me just introduce you here, the intro for our bio. Ari Martin, he, him, and Jason A. Terry, he, they, are members of Friends Meeting of Washington, DC, where they are co-conveners of the Queer Worship Group. Ari works to expand access for people with disabilities, and Jason is a poet who earns their keep as a humanitarian. So tell us about the Queer Worship Group happening in the Washington, DC meeting.

R.E. Martin:

Jason, you wanna go ahead?

Jason Terry:

Sure. We restarted this group in April 2024 after a friend came up to us and said, there should be a queer worship here. And I said, there should be one again. This group was first started in DC in 1979. And it met at the LGBT Community Center and moved into FMW in the early 80s.

Martin Kelley:

And that’s the friends meeting house there. Just so we know our acronyms.

Jason Terry:

Yep. And yes, sorry. And kept going, peaked sort of in the early 90s at about 100 people and then sort of gradually dwindled. For a while, it met at a separate time from the main worship of FMW. And so it was almost completely separate. And then sort of in the late 90s, they agreed to meet at 10:30. So they could share coffee hour and business meeting.

R.E. Martin:

Thank you.

Jason Terry:

And then eventually the groups dwindled. It became known more for silence than for queerness. But in these times we’re in, I think suddenly we found ourselves needing that space again. So we brought it back.

Martin Kelley:

Yeah. And what is the need?

R.E. Martin:

And I have to admit, I was a little bit ignorant of that history. I had come to Friends Meeting of Washington much later after that kind of development, and so I was there beginning in the period when there was no explicitly queer worship group. The meeting as a whole is wonderfully inclusive, but it did feel kind of like this small leading that it would be wonderful to have a space that was just more explicitly for that group of people.

Martin Kelley:

And so tell me what the purpose of an affinity group is. This is the topic of our whole issue here. When is it important to come together as a smaller, self-defined group? And what benefits does it give? What have you found in these smaller spaces?

Jason Terry:

Yeah, I think we find that as we wrote, what we do in the space is both spiritual and pastoral. There’s a tremendous need for care within our space and our community and having room to be among people who understand a little bit more of what you’re going through and what you’re experiencing. Queer people are very active at Friends Meeting in Washington. They’re very engaged, they’re enmeshed, and yet sometimes it’s helpful to go off on your own and be able to speak to what’s going through your own mind and your own space. One friend visited with us and said that in these times, she felt safe in her office and in our queer worship roof.

Martin Kelley:

Hmm. And those were the only two spaces she felt safe. Is that what you’re…

**R.

E. Martin:** I think.

Jason Terry:

Yeah.

R.E. Martin:

I think worship or even new to the idea of joining a spiritual community, I think it offers a place where they, many people have sort of felt comfortable kind trying out this space first before going into the larger meeting. I think they feel a little bit comfortable bringing themselves to space where they kind of already know they’ll be welcome before trying something that might be. I mean, don’t mean to be intimidating in the large meeting, but you know, where it may be a little bit uncertain.

Martin Kelley:

Sure, and just walking into a place and having all the faces turned to see who’s walked in, just that can be intimidating. Especially if you feel you might be judged for how you dress, how you look, whatever. So yeah, I can see that. I also love the idea of chosen ancestors that you talked about here, that this sort of revival of the Queer Worship Group was a way of hearkening back to that group that had started in the late 70s.

How was that? Tell me some of that story of reconnecting with really a community that went through a whole lot. If you think about AIDS, you think about sort of the rise of the gay rights movement. What was that like reconnecting with some of the elder friends?

Jason Terry:

Yeah, think we, being in Washington, D.C., we live in history as well as the present. And they’re sort of always there together at the same time. And Friends Meeting of Washington had a wonderful history of being one of the few places where you could get a funeral if you died of AIDS here in D.C. And doing specific outreach to those who were experiencing that pandemic and that era. And we still have people who were around then who come and join us. And they speak of how different it is now because we’re able to center joy more. And, you know, at least with all that our communities are facing, there’s not more people dying every week in large, large, large numbers.

Jason Terry:

So I think it’s important to honor that history of survival of the activism around it and came before here, both at the local and federal level. So to me, it’s something that should have popped in our heads one day. We didn’t necessarily think about it when we got going again, but suddenly we’re in the same room where this meeting has happened for longer than either of us has been alive.

Jason Terry:

And it just sort of, the roof beams were speaking one day.

Jason Terry:

Went from there.

R.E. Martin:

It’s also great just to have this kind of intergenerational aspect built into it. think in the larger meeting, you can sometimes gravitate toward people of your own generation or people who are similar to you for other reasons. And this is a nice way to kind of cut across the larger meeting and to make those connections across generations that might not be as easily facilitated.

Martin Kelley:

And it’s also, it feels like it’s a bit of outreach, at least, you back in the nineties when you had, you said over a hundred people were showing up for this worship. mean, that’s just bringing in lots of people, making them comfortable with Quakers. I’m sure some of them segued into the standard, you know, non-queer meeting or non-specifically queer. I’m sure it was still very queer, but a non-specifically queer meeting. And, you know, it’s just a nice invitation. I mean, I think about how, you know, best practices.

Martin Kelley:

Quaker meetings should put a little FLGBTQ flag on their website or something like that, just to invite people. And I think having a whole worship is even a stronger invitation to say like, yes, you are here, you are welcome. We have a space for you. And then maybe also an invitation and you can be part of the other space as well.

Martin Kelley:

Do find you’re bringing in new people to friends with this group?

Jason Terry:

Take it away, R.E.

R.E. Martin:

Yeah, I think so. I think it’s happened both ways. think some people, like I said, have kind of used this as their first toe in the water to see if this is for them. And then I think also in a great way, we have friends who have become regular attenders of just the queer meeting and they’re very happy kind of existing in that space. Maybe they’re coming to it more for the queer community than for the explicitly kind of Quaker aspects.

R.E. Martin:

So it serves both purposes, I think.

Martin Kelley:

Any advice for those who might not be queer but have the fear of missing out, the FOMO experience that they really want to? Now, I mean, I don’t identify as queer, but I do go to the FLGC TBQC worship at the FGC gathering because it’s always so warm and meaningful. So I know I’ve snuck over the line there for that.

Martin Kelley:

Do you find people are worried that they might be missing out for a different type of worship? And do you invite them in? mean, how does that work?

R.E. Martin:

Yeah, think our message is, you know, please come. Although it has a specific focus, it’s for everyone. And I think people who may not identify with some or all of those letters have still found a unique kind of worship experience in that space. And we’re grateful to have, I mean, this was a big debate and Jason could talk about it a little bit too, but there was kind of a concern that we were moving back to an integrated situation. I think it’s a wonderful thing that now the first day meeting is just for everyone and so we didn’t want to be regressive in that way but I think it is a special thing and it’s so important that everyone feels welcome to experience that.

Jason Terry:

Yeah, we really, we focus the worship on depth and being really gathered. And so there’ll either be a verbal or printed query at the beginning. Some people may reflect on those, some may not. But those handful of straight folks who have come to our worship have said that, you know, that was really rich worship.

Jason Terry:

And in part two, Friends Meeting in Washington is a big meeting. On a Sunday morning, there might be 150, 200 people in the meeting room. It’s big in Quaker language. And so having a group that’s like 20 or 25 is just special in its own way, at least in our local context.

Martin Kelley:

Yeah, for a Quaker meeting that’s huge.

R.E. Martin:

We don’t intend to structure it a little bit differently, so we will do more of a model where we have worship for about 45 minutes and then we leave time for afterthoughts at the end. And going around, because it’s smaller than the main meeting. We have that time to go around for people to introduce themselves, for people to share what was on their mind during worship or just what’s been on their mind. And that is a nice way for us to deepen our experience of community too, not just of worship. You get to learn a lot about the people in the room and there’s that space to share.

Martin Kelley:

Yeah, you have a bit of more intimacy with a smaller group of any kind in any context. Yeah. I also like that you talked about religious refugees. And I know I’ve had friends who were maybe part of another church and very involved in maybe leading Bible study or doing the classes. And they felt unwelcomed because of their queerness and came to friends.

In large part because it was open. So I wonder, does that also help the depth that you have people who have these different backgrounds who are bringing things that they’ve learned elsewhere and sort of enriching the group?

Jason Terry:

Yeah, I think, you know, to our benefit Quakers have reputation that precedes them a little bit. And so that helps some. But then there are some who were so tentative about being in any sort of religious space because it was so painful. And, you know, so even seeing that little rainbow flag on the website, you know, come here at this time in this place.

Jason Terry:

For a special meeting is like, it’s a more intentional welcome than the typical church sign by the road that says everybody’s welcome here when then you go in and find that there’s like 75 asterisks to that sentence. And you know, we’re very intentionally being like, no, really, you are welcome here, specifically here. and so it’s just a much different experience for people. And I think what we’re finding

Martin Kelley:

No. Yeah.

Jason Terry:

We’re seeing people show up at queer meetings that nobody’s ever seen before within our broader community and there’s really a yearning for some spiritual space and for some centering space, especially in these times.

R.E. Martin:

And I think we benefit from it too. hear from many different perspectives from the traditions that folks came from, kind of their experience of being queer or kind of coming out and wrestling with that tradition or with their welcome in that tradition. And I think it’s a kind of healing cathartic experience. you’ve experienced something similar to hear somebody else share that as well, and then to have a space that’s so different from that, is the foundation is you’re already welcome here.

Martin Kelley:

Well, wonderful. So when does Friends Meeting Washington Queer Worship Group happen? If anyone wants to join, come down and visit you all.

Jason Terry:

We meet on the first and third Wednesdays of each month at 6.30 at Friends Meeting of Washington. That’s 2111 Decatur Place, Northwest in DC.

Martin Kelley:

Great, I imagine it also helps to have.

R.E. Martin:

Stick around afterwards for after thoughts and also for delicious snacks that we almost always have.

Jason Terry:

Homemade baked goods, wonderful.

Martin Kelley:

That’s always wonderful. I also imagine it’s helpful to have a Wednesday night meeting, a worship at a time that’s not, you know, the Sunday morning when everyone has other things perhaps they’re doing. So that’s also a welcome, I think, too, just to have a different time and a different kind of moment of the week to share. So, well, wonderful. I hope your group continues to grow, although you keep that intimacy going as well.

Martin Kelley:

And thank you for sharing your story with Friends Journal and with us here in this podcast. Thank you.

Jason Terry:

Thanks so much for having us.

R.E. Martin:

hanks for having us.