What We Are

Hopes and Intents

Three Rivers is an open and affirming, Christian, Quaker experience of worship and connection. It is a spiritual community for those looking to ground their lives and service with others committed to support, accountability, and deepening in faithfulness. We are a place that nurtures ministry. We are an unapologetically Queer community that tries to practice radical hospitality, welcoming diverse theologies and identities. You can read more about some of our values and practices in our Circles Document. This ministry is a Monthly Meeting (Quaker Congregation) in sibling relationship with Fresh Pond Monthly Meeting in Cambridge, MA - and part of Salem Quarter in the greater Boston Area.

Gatherings and Practices

Three Rivers Meeting is an experiment in community.

Where we meet changes - depending on what we’re doing. We began in the era of COVID lockdown, on Zoom and - because of our commitment to accessibility - we still meet on Zoom! Every other Thursday.

We hold a particular concern for families and the spiritual growth of young people. We are working to make our gatherings and offerings accessible in many ways. Worship-wise, we might come together for Dinner Church. Other times it will be Semi-Programmed Worship without the food. And others still might be fully Expectant Waiting Worship or praying the Friendly Examen together.

Because this is a new expression of a worshiping community and we know that not everyone needs or wants the same thing from a church, how we gather is not always the same. Whatever we do, though, we are committed to creating spaces that actively work to nurture ministry and heal the harm settler-colonization has — and continues — to cause.

In addition to worship, there are also opportunities for learning, service, and fellowship with one another. As we grow into a Monthly Meeting we aspire to convene spiritually-grounded racial justice workshops, Quaker-style Bible study, book groups, opportunities for co-working, and game nights.

History

Three Rivers emerged out of a leading that Kristina Keefe-Perry has been nurturing since 2017. In prayer with members of Fresh Pond Monthly Meeting she discerned that it was right for her to begin to see if this vision she had might actual become something. Kristina is still a member there as the experiment of Three Rivers is beginning.

For quite a while Kristina led a group that was coming together to practice Dinner Church in the Boston area. That was awesome. When people started talking about that gathering as an organization called “Quaker Dinner Church,” though, something didn’t feel quite right. The vision that Kristina had was broader than the singular practice of dinner church, so it didn’t seem right to call the emerging community that. In prayer with members of Fresh Pond, Lisa, Emily, and Callid, Kristina eventually was clear that what was supposed to come next was Three Rivers.

Why is it “Three Rivers Meeting”?

Beyond the fact that Quakers often call their congregations “Meetings,” the name “Three Rivers” in particular means at least two important things for us.

First, we are called Three Rivers in honor of the three rivers whose watersheds we live in: the Neponset River, Charles/Quinobequin River, and Mystic/Missi Tuck River. This has felt important to name for two reasons.

  1. Kristina has been heavily influenced by the Watershed Discipleship Alliance and the need to come into right relationship with creation;

  2. It is an acknowledgement of the land upon which we live and worship. Three Rivers is committed to truth-telling about our history and learning how to live into right relationship with the Massachusett and Wampanoag Peoples whose ancestral homelands we live on.

Second, we are called Three Rivers in recognition that this experiment in community lives at the intersection of three streams braided together:

  1. A Welcoming Progressive Christianity;

  2. The Faith and Practice of The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers);

  3. Whatever new forms that God is inviting us into next .