nurture Posts

This week I received an email from a young seeker in the Philadelphia area who found my 2005 article "Witness of Our Lost Twenty-Somethings" published in FGConnections. She's a former youth ministries leader from a Pentecostal tradition, strongly attracted to Friends beliefs but not quite fitting in with the local meetings she's been trying. Somewhere she found my article and asks if I have any insights.

The 2005 article was largely pessimistic, focused on the "committed, interesting and bold twenty-something Friends I knew ten years ago" who had left Friends and blaming "an institutional Quakerism that neglected them and its own future" but my hope paragraph was optimistic:

There is hope... A great people might possibly be gathered from the emergent church movement and the internet is full of amazing conversations from new Friends and seekers. There are pockets in our branch of Quakerism where older Friends have continued to mentor and encourage meaningful and integrated youth leadership, and some of my peers have hung on with me. Most hopefully, there's a whole new generation of twenty- something Friends on the scene with strong gifts that could be nurtured and harnessed.

Hard to imagine that only three years ago I was an isolated FGC staffer left to pursue outreach and youth ministry work on my own time by an institution indifferent to either pursuit. Both functions have become major staff programs, but I'm no longer involved, which is probably just as well, as neither program has decided to focus on the kind of work I had hoped it might. The more things change the more they stay the same, right? The most interesting work is still largely invisible.

Some of this work has been taken up by the new bloggers and by some sort of alt-network that seems to be congealing around all the blogs, Twitter networks, Facebook friendships, intervisitations and IM chats. Many of us associated with QuakerQuaker.org have some sort of regular correspondence or participation with the Emerging Church movement, we regularly highlight "amazing conversations" from new Friends and seekers and there's a lot of inter-generational work going on. We've got a name for it in Convergent Friends, which reflects in part that "we" aren't just the liberal Friends I imagined in 2005, but a wide swath of Friends from all the Quaker flavors.

But we end up with a problem that's become the central one for me and a lot of others: what can we tell a new seeker who should be able to find a home in real-world Friends but doesn't fit? I could point this week's correspondent to meetings and churches hundreds of miles from her house, or encourage her to start a blog, or compile a list of workshops or gatherings she might attend. But none of these are really satisfactory answers.   

Elsewhere:

Gathering in Light Wess sent an email around last night about a book review done by his PhD advisor Ryan Bolger that talks about tribe-style leadership and a new kind of church identity that uses the instant communication tools of the internet to forge a community that's not necessarily limited to locality. Bolger's and his research partner report that they see "emerging initiatives within traditional churches as the next horizon for the spread of emerging church practices in the United States." More links from Wess' article on emerging churches and denominations.

Those Quaker Ranters readers who are coming to the FGC Gathering but haven't lost internet access yet might be interested in some of the events the Advancement & Outreach committee is sponsoring over the week. There will be a flyer in the registration packets (all these events will take place in Admin 203). For those not coming, I suspect I'll have some sort of Gathering round-up post at some point after it's all done. I'm also co-hosting a Monday night interest group with LizOpp and Robin: "On Fire! Renewing Quakerism through a Convergence of Friends." For details, see Liz's post or Robin's post.

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The FGC Advancement and Outreach committee is sponsoring afternoon events during four days of Gathering. Come share your outreach ideas, learn about FGC and support the growth of Quakerism!

All Friends Welcome, 1:30-3:00

Monday: "What Do Quakers Believe?" Come talk about the range of Quaker beliefs, from Robert Barclay to the present day, and explore what binds us together as Friends. Convened by Deborah Haines.

Wednesday: A special welcome to Friends from Pacific, North Pacific and Intermountain Yearly Meetings. Come talk about the spirit, concerns, and Quaker ways of these three independent yearly meetings.

Thursday: Visitors from Freedom Friends Church will join us to talk about the witness of this unique independent evangelical Friends Church.

Outreach Hours, 3:15-4:15

Sunday: Visibility. Interested in publicizing your meeting and getting the Quaker message out into your community? Friends are invited to come share their stories and questions and pick up a free copy of our "Inreach-Outreach Packet for Small Meetings." Jane Berger will host.

Monday: Isolated Friends & New Worship Groups. Learn about FGC's new service for Friends and seekers who live far from any meeting or worship group. Are you interested in helping to nurture new worship groups? Come find out what resources are available from the FGC Advancement Committee, and share your stories and ideas.

Wednesday: Friends interested in affiliation. FGC is an association of 14 yearly meetings and regional groups and 9 directly affiliated monthly meetings. A&O clerk Deborah Haines will talk about the work of FGC and the benefits of affiliation.

Thursday: Spiritual Hospitality. It's easy to feel isolated even within a local meeting. A&O coordinator Martin Kelley will talk about some strategies to overcome the isolations of age, theology, race, lifestyle, etc. What can meetings do to help these Friends not feel isolated?

A workshop led by Zachary Moon and Martin Kelley at the 2005 FGC Gathering of Friends

This is for Young Friends who want to break into the power of Quakerism: it’s the stuff you didn’t get in First Day School. Connecting with historical Quakers whose powerful ministry came in their teens and twenties, we’ll look at how Friends wove God, covenants and gospel order together to build a movement that rocked the world. We’ll mine Quaker history to reclaim the power of our tradition, to explore the living testimonies and our witness in the world. (P/T)

Howard Zinn, one of our favorite progressive historians looks at the tool of nationalism in this month's Progressive:

Is not nationalism--that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder--one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred? These ways of thinking--cultivated, nurtured, indoctrinated from childhood on--have been useful to those in power, and deadly for those out of power.

I particularly like his call to "assert our allegiance to the human race." So many of the political leaders who call for war do so by whipping up fear that the enemy has already called for war against us. We justify our armies by pointing to other armies. It's like a big global racket dreamed up by the arms dealers who are often happily selling to both sides. Threats are indeed real, but we need to see beyond our self-justifying propaganda of the war machine.

A Guest Piece from 'Quakerspeak' Claire Reddy.

"As young Friends move through high school and enter the [young] adult world, there is often a general lack of communication between young Friends and adults in Meetings, as if there’s some tension about it... As the only active young Friend at my school (I'm sort of the 'token' Quaker around), I usually do not have anyone to talk to about my spiritual findings and leadings. As I have continued to develop spiritually, I find more and more I need other Friends to talk who are familiar with my struggles."

A Guest Piece by Jeffrey Hipp

"I take this commitment of membership very seriously – to labor, nurture, support and challenge my fellow Friends; to walk in the Light together, and to give, receive, and pray with my fellow sojourners when the next step is unclear. My feet are on solid ground."

A humble giant among modern Friends passed away this weekend: Bill Taber. All of us doing the work of mapping out a "conservative liberal Quakerism" owe a huge debt to Bill. Although others are more qualified to share his biography, I know he taught for many years at Ohio Yearly Meeting (Conservative)'s Olney Friends School and then for many more years at the Pendle Hill Center outside Philadelphia. He and his wife Fran were instumental in the 1998 founding of the Friends Center retreat and conference center on the campus of Olney.

I had the honor of meeting Bill and Fran once, when they came to lead a meeting retreat. But like so many Friends, Bill's strongest influence has been his writings. Four Doors to Meeting for Worship was his introduction to worship. I'll quote from the "About the Author," since it explains the root of much of his work:

This pamphlet's metaphor of the four doors grew out of his awarness of a need for a more contemporary explanation of "what happens" in a Quaker meeting. He feels this lack of insturction in method has become an increasing problem as modern Friends move farther and farther away from the more pervasive Quaker culture which in earlier generations played such a powerful teaching role, allowing both birthright and convinced Friends to learn the nuances and spiritual methodology of Quakerism largely through osmosis. In sharing this essay Bill hopes to help nurture a traveling, teaching, and prophetic ministry which could reach out and touch people into spiritual growth just when they are ready to receive the teaching.

One of the spiritual methodolgy's Bill shared with his students at Pendle Hill was a collection by a old Quaker minister named Samuel Bownas--regular readers of this site know how important Bownas's Descriptions of the Qualifications has been to me. But other books of his have been invalable too: his history of Ohio Yearly Meeting shared the old culture of the yearly meeting with great stories and gentle insight.

Bill Taber might have passed from his earthly body Friday morning but the work he did in the world will continue. May we all have the grace to be as faithful to the Teacher as he was.