The Public Quaker writing about prayer
bq. Prayer is one constant thing for me, a reliable base. When am I having epistemological doubt about everything, I do know that is good for me to pray.
A month ago LizOpp posted a interest “FAQ on her worship group”:http://thegoodraisedup.blogspot.com/2005/03/faqs-about-my-worship-group.html which is well worth reading. Last week she followed it up with a very chew-worthy post on “Theological unity and spiritual diversity”:http://thegoodraisedup.blogspot.com/2005/04/theological-unity-and-spiritual.html (which adds new ground to the territory we’ve been exploring here on Quaker Ranter on “Non-Theism”:http://www.nonviolence.org/martink/archives/000567.php and “Loving God”:http://www.nonviolence.org/martink/archives/000577.php).
“Quakerspeak”:http://www.livejournal.com/users/Quakerspeak/ is the new blog by a high-school Friend I met last week in Oregon. Whew, is she on fire!:
bq. I never really thought much about how I was sort of bottling up all my theological and spiritual contemplations; suddenly I feel like I’m pouring it all out on the table and examining it all.. well, except that I’ve been examining it all. I’m trying to better apply my sprituality to my daily life and interactions without losing sight of myself; I’m trying to figure out where it all fits into my own life without trying to alter my personality or ways of being.
Beppe’s just started a new series with a post, “The Troubles with Friends Part 1”:http://beppeblog.blogspot.com/2005/05/trouble-with-friends-1-too-much-of.html. This first installment focuses on our fear of judgementalism. Speak on, bro!
Quaker Ranter
A Weekly Newsletter and Blog from Martin Kelley
Category Archives ⇒ Quaker
As the blog name implies, I am a member of the Religious Society of Friends, known colloquially as Quakers. Many of my blog posts deal with issues of our society and its interactions with the larger world. I generally only include my own posts in this list. I share many many Quaker links in my Links Blog category and on QuakerQuaker.
Important Posts:
The Lost Quaker Generation (2003)
Peace and Twenty-Somethings (2003)
We’re All Ranters Now (2003)
Passing the Faith, Planet of the Quaker Style (2004)
Quaker Testimonies (2004)
Hey, Who Am I To Decide Anything? (2007)
The Biggest Most Vibranty Most Outreachiest Program Ever (2010)
Getting a Horse to Drink (on Philadelphia YM) (2010)
Tell Them All This But Don’t Expect Them to Listen (2010)
Youth Ministries 2: What Do Young Friends Want?
April 28, 2005
I was given permission to pass along this data from the FGC-sponsored Youth Ministry Consultation that took place Third Month. A number of goals and projects had been brainstormed beforehand. The thirty-or-so participants at the Consultation were each given ten stars, which they were asked to put next to the projects they thought should be pursued. Every star acted as a vote that there was one person interested in that topic. The stars were coded to indicate the age range of the voter: High-Schooler, Adult Young Friend (18 – 37 years old) and older Friends.
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| One of the “stars” charts at the consultation |
Being the information design geek, I converted the resultant votes to into qualities and colors and put them into a chart showing interest level. Projects that received no votes from a particular age range are labeled “none,” for no interest; 2 – 3 stars is “weak” interest and so forth, up to “HOT” which are projects which received over 7 stars from an age group.
As an example, take “develop spirituality.” Seven adult young Friends (aged 18 – 37) put a star down for this, indicating they thought it was something FGC should promote, hence “strong” (bright red) interest from this age group. No Friend over forty used one of their stars to indicate interest in this work, indicating that none of them thought FGC should be promoting spiritual development. Here are the results:
| High-School Voters | YAF Voters | Older Adult Voters | |||||||
Expecially for Adult Young Friends | |||||||||
| Community | weak | strong | weak | ||||||
| Develop spirituality | none | strong | none | ||||||
| Outreach & how to explain our faith | none | strong | weak | ||||||
| Critical mass at MM, QM, YM | none | weak | strong | ||||||
| Mentoring by older Friends | none | strong | none | ||||||
| Mentoring to younger Friends | none | strong | none | ||||||
| Mentoring to older Friends: | none | strong | none | ||||||
| Help with transitions | none | *HOT* | weak | ||||||
| Advertising programs | none | weak | none | ||||||
| Suggestions: | |||||||||
| Traveling Ministries for AYF | none | lukew | weak | ||||||
| Groups throughout the year for support | none | lukew | weak | ||||||
| Support for AYF groups at the YM levels | none | weak | weak | ||||||
| Database to help isolated friends | none | none | none | ||||||
| Clearness/discernment process: | |||||||||
| For HS to College | none | lukew | none | ||||||
| For work transitions | none | weak | none | ||||||
| For relationships | none | weak | none | ||||||
| For parenthood | none | weak | weak | ||||||
| Intergenerational Spiritual Conversations | |||||||||
| About Vital Friends Issues | none | lukew | none | ||||||
| Vision of Quakerism in 50 years | none | lukew | weak | ||||||
| Financial support for AYF | weak | *HOT* | lukew | ||||||
| Retreats for youth workers | none | none | weak | ||||||
| Materials specifically designed for AYF, | none | none | none | ||||||
| General Questions: | |||||||||
| How do we handle the broad age span? | none | weak | none | ||||||
| How do we tap the energy and passion of this group MMs, YMs & FGC? | none | lukew | strong | ||||||
| How do we meet the needs without separating AYF from larger community? | none | lukew | none | ||||||
| How do we sustain community when we only meet once a year? | none | lukew | weak | ||||||
Especially for High Schoolers | |||||||||
| Needs: | |||||||||
| Adults who are better prepared to work with them… | weak | lukew | strong | ||||||
| FAP�s that have self confidence | none | none | weak | ||||||
| Help with discernment process around college | none | none | none | ||||||
| Help with disc: C‑O | none | none | weak | ||||||
| Help with discernment around life choices | none | none | weak | ||||||
| Discernment questions: #3, #4, & #5: | none | weak | strong | ||||||
| Building community | weak | weak | weak | ||||||
| Networking | weak | none | none | ||||||
| Bible study, RE curriculum | none | none | weak | ||||||
| Training how one person can have impact | none | none | none | ||||||
| Training on how to develop group dialogs | weak | none | weak | ||||||
| Help to get more teens involved | weak | none | lukew | ||||||
| Programming help | none | none | none | ||||||
| Leadership Development | weak | weak | weak | ||||||
| Suggestions: | |||||||||
| Youth newsletter | lukew | weak | none | ||||||
| Email forum | lukew | weak | none | ||||||
| Email data base | none | weak | none | ||||||
| Event b’ween Young Quakes and Gathering | weak | none | none | ||||||
| Youth exchange | weak | none | none | ||||||
| Programs to facilitate rites of passage | weak | none | none | ||||||
Things Younger Friends wanted more than Older Friends:
In order by AYF popularity:
- MENTORSHIP: The AYFs really want cross-generational mentoring relationships. When the questions were first posed, there only “mentoring by older Friends” and “mentoring to younger Friends.” Check the math and you’ll see that’s the same question (whoever put the questions together forgot that the Quaker understanding of eldership is not necessarily a function of age, hmm). I grabbed a pencil and added “mentoring to older Friends” and it was instantly popular. Even though the mentorship issue was spread over three questions, AYF’s voted “strongly” for each of them, showing terrific popular support. Almost no over-40 Friend voted for this. This is not something that can be forced onto disinterested older Friends, which means I think we young-in’s are going to have to rely on one another for mentorship.
- SUPPORT FOR AYF CONFERNCES: Younger Friends want to spend more time together. Note should be made that the voters were Friends attending a conference and that we were a selected and self-selected group who presumably like to attend conferences. Still, this is popular.
- TALKING ABOUT OUR FAITH: It’s sad that only two older Friends thought explaining the faith was worthwhile. At the same time it’s encouraging that 13 AYFs wanted this. It’s very clear that younger Friends aren’t as afraid of talking about serious faith issues as the Baby Boomers (it’s nice to see some of my essays confirmed!).
Things Older Friends wanted more than Younger Friends:
- TAPPING THE YOUTH: There was what I thought was a semi-obnoxious question about how to “tap the energy and passion” of younger Friends. This is very close to the all-too-common generational mindset that sees “values young people as a resource” (as a ad in heavy-rotation at NPR proclaims). We are not a resource for extraction. Young people are too often seen merely as a source of cheap labor for projects initiated, designed and run by older Friends; they are wanted as passive audience members for older Friends’ pontificating lectures; they are endlessly proclaimed a far-off “future” of Friends rather than the very much here-and-now present of Friends.While older Friends at the consultation felt strongly that young people should be tapped, Adult Young Friends had lukewarm interest in being tapped and high school Friends showed no interest whatsoever. While not all older Friends think of young Friends as “resources,” it’s a common-enough theme that we need to flag it as a part of the generational gap. I suspect that power issues will surface when Quaker institutions try to pull together projects that “tap” youth: twenty-something Friends are going to want more involvement in the design and operation of these projects than older Friends will be willing to give.Similarly, older Friends seem to be more interested that younger Friends attain “critical mass” at Quaker institutions like monthly, quarterly and yearly meetings. The phrasing of the question is a little ambiguous and I see two likely explanations. One is that younger Friends don’t feel they need critical mass to be involved in Quaker institutions and want integrated intergenerational participation rather than “AYF ghettos.” The other possibility (the scarier one) is that younger Friends simply aren’t as committed to Quaker institutions. I suspect the generational differences in responses are the result of both these factors, plus others perhaps.
Things no one particularly cared about:
- No one wants materials specifically designed for AYF. No one wants advertising programs. No one wants a database to help isolated Friends.
- An AYF traveling ministries was lukewarm, 4 YAF stars, 3 over-40. This surprises me.
- Any other patterns that should be lifted up?
Disclaimer
I should note that this was not a scientific survey. Though the organizers of the Consultation tried hard and the participants were surprisingly diverse for an collection like this, they weren’t representative. There were only four high school participants and I didn’t adjust their votes: “lukewarm” support from them should really be relabled “strong” support.
While this is a small sample size, this is one of the few recent surveys of it type in FGC Quakerism and it bears close study. It confirms a lot of what I’ve been saying all these years (yea!, I’m not crazy) and echoes what I hear a lot of high school and twenty-something Friends talking about. Take it for what its worth!
Related:
- I first wrote about the Youth Ministries Consulation in “It’s My Language Now”
Let Your Lives Speak
April 20, 2005
In the bookstore today a customer called in and asked about “Let your lives speak,” a phrase frequently attributed to George Fox (it’s the source of a book title, “Lives that Speak”). While a quick Google search finds lots of pages where people say things like “as George Fox said, you should ‘let your lives speak,’” no one actually gives details of when and where he said it. The phrase seems to sit only by itself, with no passages before or after it. A few sites claim it was part of his message on Firbank Fell but no one cites a source. Sitting on the same Palm Pilot as the Yardbirds MP3s is Fox’s Journal (Jones edition) and a keyword search doesn’t pick up “lives that speak” or “let your lives speak” anywhere. Smells fishy, like another one of those too-good-to-be-true Fox quotes. Can anyone document that it’s real?
PS: I fly bright and early tomorrow morning for this year’s Quakers Uniting in Publications meeting, in Oregon. I don’t know what internet access I’ll have so my apologies if new comments have to sit for a few days.
The Loss of a Faithful Servant
April 18, 2005
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”:http://www.Quakerbooks.org/get/0 – 87574-306 – 4 was his introduction to worship. I’ll quote from the “About the Author,” since it explains the root of much of his work:
bq. 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”:http://dqc.esr.earlham.edu/toc/E19787374 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.
James R: I Am What I Am
April 7, 2005
By James Riemermann
Here’s a thought-provoking comment that James left a few days ago on the “We’re All Ranters Now”:http://www.nonviolence.org/Quaker/ranters.php piece. It’s an important testimony and a good challenge. I’m stumped trying to answer it upon first reading, which means it’s definitely worth featuring!
Term of the Day: Therepeutic Individualism
April 2, 2005
From the excellent religious journalism site The Revealer is Scott Korb’s review of the new book by the National Survey of Youth and Religion (I talked about the survey a month ago). It’s an great review, made better by the friendly disagreement in the commentary. But what struck me was his use of the terms “therapeutic individualism” and “moralistic therapeutic deism.”
The authors first identify the social contexts in which adolescents live and believe, starting with a discussion of therapeutic individualism, a set of assumptions and commitments that “powerfully defines everyday moral and relational codes and boundaries in the United States.” Personal experience is what shapes our notions of truth, and truth is found nowhere else but in happiness and positive self-esteem.
In religious terms, according to teenagers, God cares that each teenager is happy and that each teenager has high self-esteem. Morality has nothing to do with authority, mutual obligations, or sacrifice.
But we’re not talking about the teenagers here, are we? The review hints that this is the condition of the adults too, only we’re better at couching it in more convincingly religious-sounding language. Did I say I attended two days of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting sessions this weekend? More to come.
Vision for an online magazine
April 1, 2005
In early 2005, I was nominated to apply for the Clarence and Lilly Pickett Endowment for Quaker Leadership. I decided to dream up the best project I could under the restraints of the limited Pickett grant sizes. While the endowement was approved their budget was limited that year (lots of Quaker youth travel to a World Gathering) and I got a small fraction of what I had hoped for. I made an online appeal and contributions from dozens of Friends doubled the Pickett Fund grant size!
Here then is an edited version of the proposal I presented to the Pickett Fund in Third Month 2005; it has subsequently been approved by the Overseers of my meeting, Atlantic City Area Monthly Meeting.
What involvement have you had in Quaker-related activities/service projects for the betterment of your community/world?
Ten years ago I founded Nonviolence.org, a cutting edge “New Media” website that now reaches over a million visitors a year. I have been involved with a number of Philadelphia peace groups (e.g.,Food Not Bombs, the Philadelphia Independent Media Center, Act for Peace in the Middle East). I have served my monthly meeting as co-clerk and as a representative to yearly meeting bodies. I recently led a well-received “Quakerism 101” course at Medford (NJ) Monthly Meeting and will co-lead a workshop called “Strangers to the Covenant” at this year’s FGC Gathering. I have organized Young Adult Friends at the yearly and national levels, serving formally and informally in various capacities. I am quite involved with Quakers Uniting in Publications, an international association of Quaker publishers, authors and booksellers. Eighteen months ago I started a small Quaker ministry website that has inspired a number of younger Friends interested in exploring ministry and witness. For the past six years I have worked for Friends General Conference; for two of those years I was concurrently also working for Friends Journal.
What is the nature of the internship, creative activity or service project for which you seek funding?
I’ve served with various Young Adult Friends groupings and committees for ten years. In that time I’ve been blessed to meet many of my peers with a clear call to inspired ministry. Most of these Friends have since left the Society, frustrated both by monthly meetings and Quaker bodies that didn’t know what to do with a bold ministry and by a lack of mentoring eldership that could help season and steady these young ministers and deepen their understanding of gospel order.
I would like to put together an independent online publication. This would address the isolation that most serious young Friends feel and would give a focus to our work together. The publication would also have a quarterly print edition.
It’s important to build face-to-face relationships too, to build an advisory board but also a base of contributors and to give extra encouragement to fledgling ministries. I would like to travel to different young adult communities to share stories and inspiration. This would explicit reach out across the different braches of Friends and even to various seeker movements like the so-called “Emergent Church Movement.”
What amount are you requesting and how will it be used in the project? What other financial resources for your project are you considering?
$7800. Web hosting: $900 for 18 months. Software: $300. Print publication: $3000 for 6 quarterly issues at $500 per issue. Travel: $1600 for four trips averaging $400 each. $2000 for mini-sabbatical time setting up site.
The Pickett Fund would be a validation of sorts for this vision. I would also turn to other youth fellowship and yearly meeting travel funds that support the work.
What is the time frame for your project? 18 months, to be reviewed/revisioned then.
When did/will it begin? This summer. When will it end? December 2006.
In what specific ways will the project further your leadership potential in Quaker service?
It’s time that I formalize some of the work I’ve been doing and make it more of a collective effort. It will be good to see formal monthly meeting recognition of this ministry and to have institutional Quaker support. I hope to learn much by being involved with so many wonderful Friends and hope to help pull together more of a sense of mission among a number of younger Friends.
FGC Gathering program is up, whew…
March 23, 2005
Thank you to everyone who refrained from commenting after 9pm last night. I finally slogged through the work of putting the FGC Gathering program online in my role as FGC webmaster. Whoo-whee! For those who don’t know, the Gathering is a week-long conference held at different locations each summer: this year’s takes place Seventh Month 2 – 9 in Blacksburg, Virginia.
Now I guess it’s time to think about workshops. Zach Moon and I are offering up one called “Strangers to the Covenant” but then you know that already. Liz Oppenheimer aka the The Good Raised Up is leading one called “Quaker Identity: Yearning, Forming, Deepening” that I suspect will be informed by her “own experience of stepping into a Quaker identity”. There’s also an exciting history workshop being led by Betsy Cazden, “Dilemmas from Our Quaker Past” (I have to admit when I saw the listing I wondered if I should call Zach up and assure him he’d be fine doing the Strangers workshop on his own so I could take Betsy’s). Other mentions: my wife Julie really liked the Lynn Fitz-Hugh workshop she took a few years ago.
As always there are workshops whose leaders I know to be more solid and grounded than the workshop they’re proposing; conversely, there are workshops that sound more interesting than I know their leader to be. Like always there are plenty whose appeal and/or relevance to Quakerism I just don’t comprehend at all, but that’s the Gathering.
Any recommendations from the peanut gallery? I should say that I’d like to refrain from ridiculing all of the workshops that beg to be made fun of. It feels as if this would edge too close to detraction. We will only get to Kingdom by modeling Christian charity and wearing our love on our sleeves.