A promo video for the new Young Adult Friends website, featuring catz and me drinking a lot of water at 4x speed (“YAFs” or “AYFs” is the name for Friends roughly between 18 and 35).
I think this is the fourth young adult Friends networking site I’ve put together, dating back to the mid-90s when I still was a YAF.
Greg Woods introduces the site on his blog, and of course there’s a Facebook and Twitter presence for the network.
I’ve been lucky enough to have two houseguests this week: Micah Bales and Faith Kelley (no relation). They’ve come up to the Philadelphia area to help publicize a gathering of young adult Friends that will take place in Wichita in a few months. Before they left, I got them to share their excitement for the conference in front of my webcam.
Interview with Faith Kelley & Micah Bales, two of the organizers of the upcoming young adult Friends conference in Wichita Kansas.
FAITH: This is an invitation for a gathering for young adult Friends ages 18 – 35 from all the branches of the Religious Society of Friends from all across the continent. It’s going to be in Wichita Kansas from May 28 – 31. It’s a time to get together and learn about each other, to hear each other’s stories and worship together. We’re really excited by this opportunity to have people who have never been to these before and to have people who have been to other gatherings to come back.
MICAH: A lot of the advance material is already up online so you can get a good idea what this conference is going to be about and to get a sense of how to prepare yourself for a gathering like this. We’ll be getting together with folks from all over the country, Canada and Mexico – we’re hoping a lot of Hispanic Friends show up and we’ve already translated the website into Spanish. Registration is set up already; early registration goes until April 15. Airfare to Wichita is looking pretty good at the moment; if you register early you’re likely to get a fairly decent plane ticket out.
FAITH: We’re hoping people will choose to carpool together. So get organized, register early and look at the advance materials online.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
2010 Young Adult Friends Conference
Wess Daniels posts about Quaker theology on his blog. I responded there but got to thinking of Swarthmore professor Jerry Frost’s 2000 Gathering talk about FGC Quakerism. Academic, theologically-minded Friends helped forge liberal Quakerism but their influenced wained after that first generation. Here’s a snippet:
“[T]he first generations of English and America Quaker liberals like Jones and Cadbury were all birthright and they wrote books as well as pamphlets. Before unification, PYM Orthodox and the other Orthodox meetings produced philosophers, theologians, and Bible scholars, but now the combined yearly meetings in FGC produce weighty Friends, social activists, and earnest seekers.”
…
“The liberals who created the FGC had a thirst for knowledge, for linking the best in religion with the best in science, for drawing upon both to make ethical judgments. Today by becoming anti-intellectual in religion when we are well-educated we have jettisoned the impulse that created FGC, reunited yearly meetings, redefined our role in wider society, and created the modern peace testimony. The kinds of energy we now devote to meditation techniques and inner spirituality needs to be spent on philosophy, science, and Christian religion.”
This talk was hugely influential to my wife Julie and myself. We had just met two days before and while I had developed an instant crush, Frost’s talk was the first time we sat next to one another. I realized that this might become something serious when we both laughed out loud at Jerry’s wry asides and theology jokes. We ended up walking around the campus late into the early hours talking talking talking.
But the talk wasn’t just the religion geek equivalent of a pick-up bar. We both responded to Frost’s call for a new generation of serious Quaker thinkers. Julie enrolled in a Religion PhD program, studying Quaker theology under Frost himself for a semester. I dove into historians like Thomas Hamm and modern thinkers like Lloyd Lee Wilson as a way to understand and articulate the implicit theology of “FGC Friends” and took independent initiatives to fill the gaps in FGC services, taking leadership in young adult program and co-leading workshops and interest groups.
Things didn’t turn out as we expected. I hesitate speaking for Julie but I think it’s fair enough to say that she came to the conclusion that Friends ideals and practices were unbridgable and she left Friends. I’ve documented my own setbacks and right now I’m pretty detached from formal Quaker bodies.
Maybe enough time hasn’t gone by yet. I’ve heard that the person sitting on Julie’s other side for that talk is now studying theology up in New England; another Friend who I suspect was nearby just started at Earlham School of Religion. I’ve called this the Lost Quaker Generation but at least some of its members have just been lying low. It’s hard to know whether any of these historically-informed Friends will ever help shape FGC popular culture in the way that Quaker academia influenced liberal Friends did before the 1970s.
Rereading Frost’s speech this afternoon it’s clear to see it as an important inspiration for QuakerQuaker. Parts of it act well as a good liberal Quaker vision for what the blogosphere has since taken to calling convergent Friends. I hope more people will stumble on Frost’s speech and be inspired, though I hope they will be careful not to tie this vision too closely with any existing institution and to remember the true source of that daily bread. Here’s a few more inspirational lines from Jerry:
We should remember that theology can provide a foundation for unity. We ought to be smart enough to realize that any formulation of what we believe or linking faith to modern thought is a secondary activity; to paraphrase Robert Barclay, words are description of the fountain and not the stream of living water. Those who created the FGC and reunited meetings knew the possibilities and dangers of theology, but they had a confidence that truth increased possibilities.
The retreat at the Carmelite Monastery was nice. Here’s some pictures, the first of those “long-remembered”:/if_i_dont_make_it_back.php tall stone walls and the rest of the beautiful chapel:
It was a silent retreat – for us at least. There were three talks about “Teresa of Avila”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teresa_of_Avila given by Father Tim Byerley, who also works with the “Collegium Center”:http://www.collegiumcenter.org/about.php, a kind of religious education outreach project for young adult Catholics in South Jersey (I mentioned it “a few months ago”:https://www.quakerranter.org/teaching_quakerism_again.php as a model of young adult youth outreach that Friends might want to consider). Much of what Teresa has to say about prayer is universal and very applicable to Friends, though I have to admit I started spacing out by around the fourth mansion of the “Interior Castle”:http://www.ccel.org/ccel/teresa/castle2.toc.html (I’ve never been good with numbered religious steps!).
I’m in no danger of following my wife Julie’s journey from Friends to Catholicism, though as always I very much enjoyed being in the midst of a gathered group committed to a spirituality. The idea of religious life as self-abnegation is an important one for all Christians in an age where “me-ism”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScWdek6_Ids&eurl has become the “secular state religion”:http://www.walmart.com/ and I hope to return to it in the near future.
In early February I’m leading a young adult workshop up at New York Yearly Meeting’sPowell House. I don’t have any desire to get into the “spiritual workshop circuit,” but I was asked and it seemed like an opportunity to gather some interesting folks to talk about what we hunger for. The workshop is called “Food for Fire: Breaking into the Power of Quakerism” (already regretting the “breaking in” metaphor – shouldn’t it be “broken in by?”).
I hope that some of the extended Quaker Ranter family will be able to make it out. This could be a kind of Mid-Atlantic/New England gathering of whatever this of informal movement/network is. Because this is a workshop model I am expected to impart knowledge but while I’ll come with an worked-out agenda, I’m happy to loosen and/or toss it aside if needed. The workshop description:
Many of the classic themes of Quakerism speak to the condition of a world wracked by consumerism, war, bigotry and environmental disregard. Friends have a history of uniting truth and love and turning it into action. We’ll reach into the Quaker attic to dust off gospel order, plain living, traveling ministry, prophetic witness; we’ll try them on and see how they fit into our experiences of the living Spirit. There will be plenty of time to share stories in small groups and together. How are our monthly meetings doing recognizing the gifts of ministry and service among younger Friends? How are Friends doing spreading the good news of the Quaker way? There is a great people to be gathered still but how can we enter into the faithfulness required? Jesus came up the fishermen and said “Come, follow me;” what would we do if we got that call? Like any programmed Quaker event the workshop is really an excuse to assemble Friends together in prayer and faithfulness to God. The most important thing we could do this weekend is build friendships: friendships of support, mutual accountability, and peer mentorship. Friends from all branches of Quakerism welcome, as are the newest of seekers.
The price is $180 for the weekend but if that’s a burden then try to get your meeting to pay – I suspect they’ll be happy to see that you’re showing an interest in Quakerism. I’ll be driving up from South Jersey and will probably be able to pick up folks from Philly & New York. Email me if you have or need a ride from other points and I’ll try to connect you with other travelers.
If you’re too old or too impatient to wait for Second Month to roll around, pick up Brian Drayton’s new book On Living with a Concern for Gospel Ministry and read that instead. Yes, I plugged it five days ago and yes, my paycheck comes from the publisher – but I’ve now now read the first chapter and it really is that good. Reading it feels like putting that soon-to-be-favorite pop album on the turntable for the first time. Where were you when you first heard Sgt Peppers? (for the YAFs in the audience: yes I’m being silly with the Beatles reference; if you remember first putting that album on a turntable in 1967 then this isn’t your workshop!).
This is a visioning essay I wrote in March of 1997, for Friends Institute (FI), the Philadelphia-area Young Adult Friends (YAF, roughly 18 – 35 year olds) group I was very involved with at the time. I repost it now because many of these same issues continually come up in Quaker groups. See the bottom for the story on this essay, including the controversy it kicked up.
I think the YAF/FI challenges can be roughly divided into three categories. They are introduced in the next paragraph, then elaborated on in turn. They are:
ACCOUNTABILITY:
PYM/FI has not been an organization with good communication skills, group process or accountability. Business meetings have been thought of as a necessary and begrudged task where half the participants fall asleep.
Business Meetings should have clear, advance agenda. The YAF clerk should call for agenda items by email two weeks before the meeting (phoning prominent members who don’t have access to email), and send out a draft agenda the week before. Basic agenda items should include variation on the following (my facilitation experience comes from Quaker-inspired but not Quaker process, so some of these tasks might need to be turned into Quakerese):
All reports should be written (ideally distributed by email beforehand and with a dozen copies at the meeting) and should include activity, fiscal activity, policy questions needing business meeting input, approval of future tasks. Every decision should have specific people as liaisons for follow-up, and part of the next Business Meeting should be reviewing progress on these tasks.
OUTREACH: WHO DO WE SERVE?
I have a very large concern that the official YAF/FI organization does not do extensive outreach and that it hasn’t always been sensitive to the needs of all YAFs.
As a convinced Friend who first ventured forth to a Quaker Meeting at age 20, I spent years looking for YAFs and not finding them. The only outreach that YAF/FI does is to graduating Young Friends (the high school program). Our outreach to newly convince Friends has been nonexistent.
Other underrepresented YAFs: the Central Phila. MM group, thirty-something YAFs, YAFs of color, les/bi/gay YAFs (our President Day’s gathering conflicts with the popular mid-winter FLGC gathering, an unfortunate message we’re sending), YAFs with children.
Some of the outreach challenges for YAF/FI include:
ACTIVITIES
YAF events have had their problems. Thematically, they usually have not had Quaker themes, they have not been geared toward spiritual growth (usually First Day’s Meeting for Worship is the only spiritual component). They have followed the patterns of Young Friends events (3 day gatherings), even though this format excludes many (most?) YAFs.
We could easily have more of a mix of events. Some could be the traditional weekend events, some could be day events, like the successful apple-picking expedition and Swarthmore gathering a few years ago organized by Friends Center-employed YAFs.
As far as I’ve known, there has never been any Business Meeting brainstorming for themes, and each event has been organized in an ad hoc manner by a small group of people without feedback from the general YAF population. This is partly a result of the need for conference organizers to have a conference planned long in advance.
I propose that we set Year-Long Themes, a process that some groups employ to interesting effect. In the fall, there could be a Business Meeting to decide the next calendar year’s theme; Steering Committee could then organize all of the programmatic events around this topic. This would give large YAF input into the selection process and also provide an interesting unity to topics. Each topic should be broad enough to allow for an interesting mix of programs and each topic should have a specific Quaker focus. One pedagogical motivation behind these events should be to introduce and reinforce Friends’ history and culture.
Themes that I’d love to see:
This essay written Third Month 21, 1997 by Martin Kelley
The Story of this essay (written fall of 2003)
I wrote for Friends Institute, the Philadelphia-area young adult Friends group, back in March of 1997. I was very involved with the group at the time, serving formally as treasurer and webmaster and informally as the de-facto outreach coordinator. We had a visioning retreat coming up in a few months and I wrote this as a strengths / weaknesses / opportunities piece to get the ideas rolling. I thought we had some work to do around the issues of cliquishness, and I also thought we could become more thoughtful and spiritually-focused but I tried to find a sensitive way to talk about this issues.
I got a lot of reactions to this essay. Some people really really loved it, especially those outside the Philadelphia insiders group: “Thanks for the insightful analysis! You really did a wonderful job of objectively explaining the frustrations that some PYM YAF’s (myself included) have with FI” and “I was so inspired by your essay ‘YAF vision for future’ that we are hoping bring it forward and circulate it here in among Australian YAF.”
But some of the insiders felt challenged. One didn’t even like me talking about cliques: “I think that as a group we have all been aware for some time of the problems plaguing Friends Institute… I don’t like the word clique because it makes me think of an exclusionary snobbish group of people that looks down on others.” (of course this was my point).
As if to prove my analysis correct, the insiders immediately started talking amongst themselves. Within two weeks of emailing this essay, both of my formal positions in the organization were being challenged. One insider wrote a request to the yearly meeting to set up a competing Friends Institute website; others started wondering aloud whether it proper for an attender to be Friends Institute treasurer. No one ever questioned my dedication, honesty and good work. I was more actively involved in Quakerism and my meeting than most of the birthright members who participated in FI, and I was the most conscientious treasurer and webmaster the group ever had. My essay had obviously hit a nerve and the wagons were circling in against the outsider threat. Realizing just how ingrained these issues were and to what extent the insiders would go to protect their power, I eventually left Friends Institute to focus again on my monthly meeting’s thriving twenty- and thirty-something scene.
The essay continued to have a life of its own. The May 1997 visioning retreat focused on nothing at all and subsequent business meetings dropped to a handful of people. But the issues of the high-school focus, cliquishness, and unfriendliness to newcomers came to the forefront again a few months later, after some sexual assaults took place in the young adult community. A conference on “sexual boundaries” produced an epistle that hit some of the same topics as my visioning essay:
We identified a number of habits and issues in our young adult community that tend to bring up dangerous situations. For example, some of our sexual boundaries carry over from our experience as high-school aged Young Friends… Newcomers become “fresh meat” for people who come to gatherings looking to find quick connections… People get lost especially when we have larger gatherings, and we don’t watch out for each other.
Friends Institute drifted for a few years. By the summer of 2000, a convince Friend became clerk and tried to revive the group. She found my essay and emailed me: “I’ve been looking over the FI archives and am impressed by your contribution. Do you have any advice, suggestions, or time to become active again in FI?” Sad to say this attempt to revive Friends Institute also had a lot of problems.
I repost this essay here in 2003 partly to have a ongoing record of my Quaker writings here on my website. But I suspect these same issues continue in various young adult friends groups. Perhaps someone else can see this essay and be inspired, but a warning that I’ve seen these dynamics in many different young adult friends groups and seriously wonder whether reform or revival is impossible.
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