I am a South Jersey Friend and dad with a love out of outreach and a passion for looking afresh at Friends' testimonies, language and practices. I am the publisher of Quaker Quaker, a community site for Friends, and write about online publicity, organizing and design on my business site at MartinKelley.com.
programmed Posts
December 22, 2008 4:48 PM.
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Categories: christian , conservative , liberal , outreach , plain , quaker | Tags: christian, christmas, christmas tree, communion, community, depression, friends, hypenated, jewish, liberal, mainstream, ministers, non-theist, nostalgia, outreach pastoral, pagan, pageant, primitive christianity, programmed, quaker, schools, scrooge, seekers, sermons
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This may be a somewhat new phenomenon to Streib, but it's not to Evangelical Friends. So how do I answer Streib's question? As Evangelical Quakers in Evangelical Friends Church Southwest, the answer is a firm and loving "No".
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Originally I created this blog to be a non-threatening discussion board for people in the Tacoma community. It turned into a forum for unprogrammed and semi-programmed and programmed Friends to interact, share perspectives, and learn from one another.
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I quickly learned that there was a video feed (which I’m working on finding an archive of), and others were watching from afar. And before I knew it…my twittering turned my timeline into a back channel for the Philadelphia City Council Public Hearing
May 8, 2008 12:38 AM.
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Then a very elderly woman, a lifelong Quaker (a very weighty Friend, we would say), stood up in the silence and said, "I wish our Friend would run up and down shouting Hallelujah if God is asking him to."
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The panel had a chance to share with the wider meeting community the tenderness, vulnerability, intimacy, and challenge of working with an ongoing care-and-accountability committee.
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Form of worship, reliance on unmediated revelation, potential for living into the Light and decision-making assumptions top the list. She also lists issues she didn't discuss, including freedom of belief.
February 25, 2008 11:26 PM.
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My friend Kevin-Douglas emailed recently about a new worship group he's helped to start in downtown Baltimore. It sounds like some of the other Christ-center worship groups that have been popping up the shadow of established Quaker meetings. It's consciously small and home-based, taking place at a non-traditional time with an implicit Emergent Church flavor. Experienced Friends are involved (I know KD from FGC's Central Committee for example) and while it's formed next to and out of large, active meetings, it's not schismatic.
I asked KD if I could put his description up as a "guest post.' I'm hoping a post here can let more seekers and Friends in Baltimore know about it. But beyond that, there's a definite small movement afoot and I thought Ranter readers might be interested in the example (here are a few others: Laughing Waters and Chattahoochee (thanks to Bill Samuel for the last link, some of these are indexed in his helpful Friends Christian Renewal listing).
From KD:
I asked KD if I could put his description up as a "guest post.' I'm hoping a post here can let more seekers and Friends in Baltimore know about it. But beyond that, there's a definite small movement afoot and I thought Ranter readers might be interested in the example (here are a few others: Laughing Waters and Chattahoochee (thanks to Bill Samuel for the last link, some of these are indexed in his helpful Friends Christian Renewal listing).
From KD:
Before R. got sick and eventually died, we had been thinking of hosting an informal meeting for worship in the manner of Friends at our house that would be explicitly Christ-centered. We aren't talking Christian Orthodoxy here, but rather with the understanding of all involved that we come together to explore our faith through the teachings of Jesus and those who came before and after him. It would be Quaker in that we'd follow in the tradition of Quaker Christians, gaining from their wisdom and experience.
Now, the Spirit is leading me back to this.
So, what is going on?
I very much appreciate universalism as a world view. I in no way believe that Christianity is the only way. I do believe, however, that Jesus is the Way, Truth and the Life. The Way being one of love and compassion, of justice and sincere seeking of that mystery that I call God. I don't think Jesus was the only one who brought that way, but I do see his way as leading to God, and that by his Way, we can get to God. It doesn't matter to me whether he was or is God; I do see him as a sacrament, a way to God. For me he is the way to God. He is living. I know this experientially.
So I want to share in this with others. I want to sit in silence, or sing in praise, or consider a query, scripture or word of advice from Friends past with others who also want to know God through Christ. I'm not concerned about theology. IT's about experience for me. I don't mind if those who don't "know Jesus" come, as I know God can speak through all. If those who come and don't consider themselves Christian are willing to wrestle with the teachings of Jesus and his ancestors and his followers, then I say WELCOME! I'm not set on form either. I do prefer unprogrammed worship, but I mean that literally: that we don't necessarily set a program, but that there indeed may be silence or a query, scripture or advice read at the beginning of worship. Perhaps candles are lit, maybe even *gasp* incense! I don't feel the need to be bound to our puritan roots and yet I feel the wisdom of allowing the Spirit to direct the worship is a wisdom we should continue to follow. I believe in experiential and experimental worship. Perhaps we have the Friends hymnal available and one may feel led to sing from it and others can join if they too feel led. As for now, it's been completely unprogrammed worship as one would find in most Conservative Friends meetings. As for community, I hope God will gather together a community where we do recognize ministries and gifts perhaps in the way that Friends have done so traditionally but maybe in radically new ways! I'm so tired of Evangelical/Liberal/Conservative labels. Can we just be Friends?
I do so love being Quaker. I do so love Jesus. I hope to find a community where these are wed without qualifications.
We meet third Sundays of every month at a home (Mine right now) from 5-6pm and are listed in Quaker Finder:
Downtown Baltimore Worship Group
Christ-centered, unprogrammed worship is generally held on the 3rd Sunday of the month at 5:00 PM in a home. Follow link for current details.
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As I was pondering these [historical] Anabaptist martyrs, I was wondering how many of us Friends, are willing to take a stand and say, "This is what I believe in because I know in my heart of hearts that it is Truth"?
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The boundaries that exist between me and the world in my 9-5 exist because of professional requirements. But on Sunday I would like for just once, those boundaries not to exist, for us all to be a community of equals serving each other in silent worship.
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I wasn't happy with the possibility of a struggle for or against an individual, a struggle that ignored the systemic "Lamb's war" dimension of the problem. I wanted to say to everyone, Don't get knocked off center; remember what you already know.
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Since our worship is unprogrammed, it means that if we want to practice something together, like reading the Bible or singing, or a string quartet, we do that outside of worship.
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Lively commentary about belief signs in the meetinghouse window.
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The comments that have me chuckling are about references to the Quaker Oats guy because I have been wondering if today's Friends might somehow rebuke Quaker Oats by designing a contest for Friends and submitting new designs of the outdated logo.
February 9, 2008 11:21 PM.
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Penn probably had Jesus’ statement in mind – “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Who among us – mother, father, co-worker, boss – is not weary and burdened? Whose soul doesn’t need nourishment and refr
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Did you hear that? I think it might be me, fingers finding a keyboard, brain finding my blog again. The blogging bug is beckoning me back
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Serving in pastoral ministry near the Adirondacks: "I delight in my fulltime pastoral position at a small, programmed Friends meeting."
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Balance is best, but sometimes risks must be taken. There are times when someone (the head of school, a teacher, a child) needs to nudge the group away from darkness and self-absorption and back towards the light.. You will know it when you see (hear) it.
November 9, 2007 11:27 PM.
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How does my role differ from the Presbyterian pastor next door -- and how, or can, the idea of Quaker pastor be reconciled with the Friendly testimony against hireling ministers?
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Some might say a selection of the values above are specifically Quaker or come out of our testimonies. But I bet if you show this list to a Unitarian or any other lefty, they'd agree with it as a list of things to disdain.
October 20, 2007 1:38 AM.
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It's that season again, the time when unprogrammed Friends talk about Christmas. Click Ric has posted about the seeming incongruity of his meeting's Christmas tree and LizOpp has reprinted a still-timely letter from about five years ago about the meeting's children Christmas pageant.
One confusion that arises in liberal meetings this time of year is that it's assumed it's the Christian Friends who want the Christmas tree. Arguments sometime break out with "hyphenated" Friends who feel uncomfortable with the tree: folks who consider themselves Friends but also Pagan, Nontheistic, or Jewish and wonder why they're having Christianity forced on them. But those of us who follow what we might call the "Christian tradition as understood by Friends" should be just as put out by a Christmas tree and party. We know that symbolic rituals like these spark disunity and distract us from the real purpose of our community: befriending Christ and listening for His guidance.
Unprogrammed liberal Friends could use the tensions between traditional Quakerly stoicism and mainstream Christian nostalgia as a teaching moment, and we could use discomfort around the ritual of Christmas as a point of unity and dialog with Pagan, Jewish and Non-theistic Friends. Christian Friends are always having to explain how we're not the kind of Christians others assume we are (others both within and outside the Society). Being principled about Christmas is one way of showing that difference. People will surely say "oh come on," but so what? A lot of spiritual seekers are critical of the kind of crazy commercial spending sprees that marked Christmas's past and I don't see why a group saying Christmas isn't about Christ would be at a particular disadvantage during this first Christmas season of the next Great Depression.
I've been talking about liberal unprogrammed Friends. For the record, I understand Christmas celebrations among "pastoral" and/or "programmed" Friends. They've made a conscious decision to adopt a more mainstream Christian approach to religious education and ministry. That's fine. It's not the kind of Quaker I practice, but they're open about their approach and Christmas makes sense in that context.
Whenever I post this kind of stuff on my blog I get comments how I'm being too Scroogey. Well I guess I am. Bah Humbug. Honestly though, I've always like Quaker Christmas parties. They're a way of mixing things up, a way of coming together as a community in a warmer way that we usually do. People stop confabbing about committee questions and actually enjoy one another's company. One time I asked my meeting to call it the Day the World Calls Christmas Party, which I thought was kind of clever (everyone else surely thought "there goes Martin again"). The joy of real community that is filled once a year at our Christmas parties might be symptom of a hunger to be a different kind of community every week, even every day.