And I remember the blog “The Quaker Dharma”, too. I can’t believe that guy is the new General Secretary of FGC, whose not half bad looking, if I might be so bold, and I will be anyway…maybe I’ll rethink returning to Quakerism…

Seriously, I may not have much interest in religion these days, but I always valued the Friendly blogging community I once was a part of, and you helped connect me to it, and build and maintain it. Thanks so much for your fellowship and the excellent work that you continue to do.

Yeah, I’m not sure… The most natural form would be sharing leaked documents, deconstructing backassward attitudes and critiquing current websites that are doing things wrong. I’ve grown tame in my old age, or maybe it’s Christian mercy. Whatever, I’m more interested in lifting up the individuals and groups where I see fresh life.

I was having an interesting chat yesterday with a fellow blogger. We were talking about apostasy (!) and social media and the conclusion I came to was the organizations that have their eyes on the prize–I’d say the good news of Christ’s presence in our lives, but really it could be any strong vision for themselves–will be focused outward, open to fresh people and new ideas. They won’t be stingy about linking to fellow workers in the field. They’ll know that their competitors aren’t the fundraising team in the next office, but a culture of indifference and triviality that pressures Friends and would-be Friends to care more about transient fluff than their own spiritual state. The Holy Spirit wins when we take the time to care about “unimportant” people (an isolated blogger in Dallas circa 2005) or to build up the church by helping others in their ministry even when it doesn’t advance our career or bring money to our organization’s fundraising campaign. The Religious Society of Friends is a movement led by the Spirit, to which our organizations are simply servants. Those with cultures that understand this won’t have any problems being relevant.

Hi Barry: It’s great to see you here. I was hoping you might drop back into the blogosphere. Hope it’s not too strange to be a public figure that people talk about but of course that’s part of what you’ve signed up for! 🙂

On the support side, I’ll start off with the most obvious answer: encourage FGC programs to use the Quaker Ad Network. For FGC it’s a great way to reach tens of thousands of people with your message. The bookstore, the Gathering, publications and job openings should all really be using it.

I’m hoping that QuakerAds can grow to support a wider social media ecosystem. When I consider the time I put into it I’m maybe making minimum wage (I consider it a form of marketing for my social media consulting business). The real benefactors are the bloggers. Right now we have one (Wess Daniels) as a test, but as we get more business I hope to add many many more. By year’s end, I’d love to see dozens of bloggers making anywhere from $20-$200 a month. One of the neater social media projects right now is Quakermaps.com and while they’re still not on QuakerAds (I bug Micah and Jon fairly constantly), it’s an example of an incredibly useful independent service that doesn’t need a big budget. FGC could give real support to these sorts of projects by using QuakerAds–and of course, you’d be reaching a wide audience and generating a lot of attention and good will among bloggers.

I’ll share one more concern. Right now, with one exception, I can’t think of anyone active in blogging or Quaker social media who’s on the staff of FGC, PYM, Pendle Hill or AFSC (PYM’s Stephen Dotson has just started a YAF network on Facebook). That’s worrysome. There’s no bridges. There’s no one who would have known your blog who is having weekly staff meetings in anyone’s office. I can only speculate on the cause: organizations aren’t hiring the right people or maybe staffers are worried about losing their jobs if they’re too active (there was that one guy back in 2006…). I tried to light a fire with PYM a few months ago but that apparently landed on rocky soil.

Whatever the reason, as General Secretary of FGC you could encourage more active engagement. I know FGC is working on a six-figure communications master plan but you can’t throw money at what’s needed. The most expensive, cutting-edge website in the world won’t change the culture or break down the wall between staff and independent Quaker social media. You’d be better off rebuilding FGCQuaker.org in Blogspot and telling staff that if they want to keep their jobs they all have to post something once a week. I’m being completely serious here. I doubt that’s on the table, but I do see fundamental changes happening in how Friends communicate, changes that will affect how we organize. The institutions that learn how to engage and adapt will be the ones that stay most relevant.

Thank you so much for this post. I was thinking about you and this larger history you’ve shared as I was answering those interview questions for Chris Pifer. I’m grateful you covered this.

I want to publicly say thank you for connecting me to Michael Wajda and FGC. My introduction to Michael and the FGC Development Committee led me to serve on FGC Central Committee and to also become a Quaker Quest travel team member. Later, it was Michael who first took me to Pendle Hill for spiritual nurture. That visit in turn led to my employment at Pendle Hill. Your hunch to connect me to Michael proved prescient and life changing. Yes, my road to where I am now would have been longer without blogging and without the support, grounding and connections extended to me by people like you, Liz Opp and many others. Thanks. Also, I wish to share that the “now” I’m referring to is a place where I feel more grounded in our practices and I can live into my call. The fact that living into this call led me to be named as the next General Secretary of FGC was a surprise in many ways. It was not the goal. Serving God was and is the goal. But, I hope becoming General Secretary is an outcome that serves the good of many people and that I do this work grounded in Spirit.

I also want to support your observation that “At the end of the day, spiritual outreach is a one-on-one activity. It’s people spending the time to find one another, share their spiritual journey and share opportunities to grow in their faith.” Yes, it’s the community that we build with one another that really matters. I hope in my time at FGC I can work with staff, the board, volunteers, and all sorts of Quaker communities to help provide the tools, programs and opportunities for people to grow further in their faith journey by reaching out to one another. I love how online media has already helped support this process for so many people and I look forward to how online media might be used in the future. With this in mind, I hope you will post soon concerning:

“What would it look like for the “old style” Quaker organizations to start supporting independent Quaker social media? And how could our networks reinvigorate cash-strapped Quaker organizations with fresh faces and new models of communication? Those are questions for another post.”

With appreciation,

Barry Crossno