Rockingham Meeting is located just west of Harrisonburg, Virginia. The meeting has been an important outpost of Ohio YM outside of the traditional Quaker settlement areas. It has also been the home base of several leading Ohio Friends and has always had a strong sense of community among their members.
The meeting at Rockingham was founded in the early 1970s. The original group was enhanced after the General Meeting of Conservative Friends at West Grove, North Carolina, held in 1974. Three families moved to Rockingham at that time, and in 1978 the meeting was granted Monthly Meeting status. Tensions between the original group and the newer Friends led to a division; one group opened a meeting that took the name Harrisonburg Meeting and affiliated with Baltimore YM.
In the early 1990s, Rockingham became involved in an attempt to reach out to Friends in Baltimore YM. Some Baltimore meetings contacted Rockingham and asked Friends to bring a Christian witness to their meetings. An unofficial group called the "travelling meeting" worshipped among these various places. The travelling meeting came to an end when Friends with the greatest affinity for Rockingham either moved to Ohio or affiliated with Rockingham.
At the same time as the travelling meeting, Rockingham was instrumental in the creation of affiliate membership. The category was created to accommodate a British Friend who sought a tie to Ohio but was unable to worship regularly at Rockingham. As the travelling meeting faded, Rockingham turned its attention to the affiliates. Over time, a group of Friends in England became affiliates. Rockingham Friends visited England several times to nurture these Friends.
In the late 1990s, Rockingham began to emphasize outreach. It held an "EOP" conference - the acronym standing for Evangelism, Outreach, and Proclamation. A new meeting was established among Rockingham members in Highland County, and another meeting was established in southeastern Pennsylvania. Both meetings were short-lived, but in the early 21st century Rockingham played a major role in nurturing more permanent groups: Caln Meeting in Pennsylvania (later Keystone Fellowship), Chattahoochee Meeting in Georgia, and Capitol Hill Friends in Washington DC. |
