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I don’t know if I’m “convergent,” (probably not) but I have been involved with the emerging church for several years and with Quakerism for a decade. I also am aware of the house church movement, but my experience of it is that is is very tangentially related to Quakerism. I really, really hope and pray that Christian revival is coming to liberal Friends, but personally I have not seen that phenomenom. Where do you see it most? Do you see it more as commitment to Christ or as more people being Christ curious, to use Robin’s phrase?

As I wrote recently I think convergence is more of a trend than an identity and I’m not sure whether it makes sense to fuss about who’s convergent or not. As with any question involving liberal Friends, whether there’s “Christian revival” going on depends on what what you mean by the term. I think more liberal Friends have become comfortable labeling themselves as Christ curious; it has become more acceptable to identify as Christian than it was a decade or two ago; a significant number of younger Friends are very receptive to Christian messages, the Bible and traditional Quaker testimonies than they were.

These are individual responses, however. Turning to collective Quaker bodies there are few if any beliefs or practices left that liberal Friends wouldn’t allow under the Quaker banner if they came wrapped in Quakerese from a well-connected Friend; the social testimonies stand in as the unifying agent; it’s still considered an argument stopper to say that any proffered definition would exclude someone.

I’d argue that liberal Quakerism is becoming ever more liberal (and less distinctively Quaker) at the same time that many of those in influence are becoming more Christian. It’s a very proscribed Christianity: coded, tentative and most of all individualistic. It’s okay for a liberal Friend to believe whatever they want to believe as long as they don’t believe too much. Whether the quiet influence of the rising generation of conservative-friendly leadership is enough to hold a Quaker center in the centrifuge that is liberal Quakerism is the $60,000 question. I think the leadership has an inflated sense of its own influence but I’m watching the experiment. I wish it well but I’m skeptical and worry that it’s built on sand.

Some of the Christ-curious liberal Friends are forming small worship groups and some of these are seeking out recognition from Conservative bodies. It’s an achingly small movement but it shows a desire to be corporately Quaker and not just individualistically Quaker. With the internet traditional Quaker viewpoints are only a Google search away; sites like Bill Samuel’s “Quakerinfo.com”:www.quakerinfo.com and blogs like Marshall Massey’s are breaking down stereotypes and doing a lot of invaluable educating (and I could name a lot more). It’s possible to imagine all this cooking down to a third wave of traditionalist renewal. Ohio Yearly Meeting-led initiatives like the Christian Friends Conference and All Conservative Gatherings are steps in the right direction but any real change is going to have to pull together multiple trends, one of which might or might not be Convergence.

Our role in this future is not to be strategists playing Quaker politics but servants ready to lay down our identities and preconceptions to follow the promptings of the Inward Christ into whatever territory we’re called to:

From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. Matthew 16:21–28.

Snore.

What makes my sleepy response especially strange is that except for the homosexuality issue (yay for FLGBTQC!), I’m pretty close to Scott’s positions. I worry about the liberalization of Conservative Friends, I get cranky about Christian Friends who deny Christ in public, and I think a lot of Friends are missing the boat on some core essentials. When I open my copy of Ohio’s 1968 discipline and read its statement of faith (oops, sorry, “Introduction”), I nod my head. As far as I’m aware I’m in unity with all of Ohio Conservative’s principles of faith and practice and if I signed up for their distance membership I certainly wouldn’t be the most liberal member of the yearly meeting.

I’m actually not sure about Scott’s yearly meeting membership; I’m simply answering his question of why he and the other Conservatives who hold a strong concern for “the hedge” (a separation of Conservative Friends from other branches) might want to think about Convergence. Of all the remaining Conservative bodies, the hedge is arguably strongest in Ohio Yearly Meeting and while parts of this apply to Conservatives elsewhere—Iowa, North Carolina and individuals embedded in non-Conservative yearly meetings—the snares and opportunities are different for them than they are for Ohioans.

Why Ohio Conservative should engage with Convergence:

• If you have all the answers and don’t mind keeping them hidden under the nearest bushel then Convergence means nothing.
• But if you’re interested in following Jesus and being a fisher of men and women by sharing the good news… Well, then it’s useful to learn that there’s a growing movement of Friends from outside Conservative circles (however defined) who are sensing there’s something missing and looking to traditional Quakerism for answers.

Ohio Conservatives have answers and this Convergence movement is providing a fresh opportunity to share them with the apostate Friends and with Christians in other denominations seeking out a more authentic relationship with Christ. Engaging with Convergence doesn’t mean Ohio Friends have to change anything of their faith or practice and it needn’t be about “dialogue”: simply sharing the truth as you understand it is ministry.

Yes, there are snares involved in any true gospel ministry; striking the right balance is always difficult. As the carpenter said, “narrow is the way which leadeth unto life”. We are beset on all sides by roadblocks that threaten to lead us away from Christ’s leadership. Ohio Friends will need to be on guard that ministers don’t succumb to the temptation to water down their theology for any fleeting popularity. This is a real danger and it frequently occurs but while I could tell eight years of great insider stories from the halls of Philadelphia, is that what we’re here to do?

Let me put my cards on the table: I don’t see much of Ohio effectively ministering now. There’s too much of a kind of pride that borders on obnoxiousness, that loves endlessly reciting why Iowa and North Carolina aren’t Conservative and why no other Friends are Friends, blah blah blah. It can get tiresome and legalistic. I could point to plenty of online forums where it crosses the line into detraction. Charity and love are Christian qualities too. Humility and a sense of humor are compatible with traditional Quakerism. How do we find a way to continue safeguarding Ohio’s pearls while sharing them widely with the world. There are Ohio Friends doing this and while I differ with Scott Savage on some social issues I consider tangential (and he probably doesn’t), I very much appreciate his hard work advancing the understanding of Quakerism and agree on more than I disagree.

But how do we find a way to be both Conservative and Evangelical? To marry Truth with Love? To not only understand the truth but to know how, when and where to share it? I think Convergence can help Ohio think about delivery of Truth and it can help bring seekers into the doors. When I rhetorically asked last month what Convergent Friends might be converging toward, the first answer that popped in my head was Ohio Friends with a sense of humor. I’m not sure it’s the most accurate definition but it reveals my own sympathies and I find it tempting to think about what that would look like (hint: kraken might be involved).

A reminder to everyone that I’ll be at Ohio Yearly Meeting Conservative sessions in a few weeks to talk more about the opportunities for Ohio engagement with Convergence. Come round if you’re in the area.
Also check out Robin’s own response to Scott, up there on her own blog. It’s a moving personal testimony to the power and joy of cross-Quaker fellowship and the spiritual growth that can result.

The work wasn’t ours. We simply set the stage. My first impulse is to say we helped create an environment where the Spirit could break into the event, but that’s not really it. We tried to create a space where participants would recognize when the Spirit knocked on the door.

Food for Fire participants.Bloggers at the workshop pose for a goofy attacking-one-another photo.

What happened last night felt similar to what happened in last February’s Powell House Food for the Fire workshop. While I took notes and journaled a lot about it I never gave a followup blog post. It was powerful and I needed to digest it. Luckily participants Rob, Amanda and Zach and Claire all shared about it or its themes in the weeks afterwards.

I’d like to share something about the assumptions and preparation that went into these two events. There’s no way to create a cookie-cutter agenda to force a deep spiritual high. In fact part of what’s needed is to move beyond predictability. Both times I’ve had a clear sense that a point came when I was no longer facilitating, where Spirit was actively guiding us and participants were actively responding to that process, even eldering us past the control of facilitation.

When I came to Powell House I had a workshop description and a keen interest in the topic. What I didn’t bring was an agenda. I’m trying to experiment with not being too prepared.* Early Friends held open meetings and while they often bore concerns and had themes that frequently reoccurred in their ministry. Friends today rely very much on models borrowed from higher education: we have workshops that expect agendas, we give talks that expect pre-printed speeches. These are often the opportunities we get for teaching ministries, yet they are very programmed. The challenge is to figure out how to subvert them to allow for unprogrammed surprise.

At Powell House I spent time before each session walking around the grounds in prayer for guidance on what to do next. I had brainstormed ideas beforehand but my main preparation had been a lot of Quaker reading and prayer in the weeks preceeding the event. I wanted the sessions to connect to the spiritual condition of the participants, as individuals and as a group. There were a few moments I thought I was nuts. For example, walking around before the Powell House Saturday afternoon session it seemed like reading a chapter of Samuel Bownas’s Description of the Qualifications would be a good idea, but by mid-afternoon I could see the sleepy faces. We did it anyway and faces and spirit lit up. People wanted to engage with Bownas. As it turns out we read all of chapter three, “Advice to Ministers in a State of Infancy.” It was so cool.

The real inbreaking happened a little later. The group was tired, dinner was nearing. I started to recommend we go into a circle to break up. One Friend interrupted, looked at another across the room and said “you have something to say, don’t you.” The second Friend said yes, then challenged us that we hadn’t actually answered our queries at all. The main question was still on the table. “What are we called to do?” There was a release. I knew I was not in control of the workshop anymore. We came into a prayer circle and started to talk about some of this. One Friend said something about naming who it is that call us. A theme came out that it wasn’t enough for us to find some sort of personal salvation and comfort in our Quaker meetings: we needed to bring all the world into this if it was to be meaningful. It truly felt like the Holy Spirit was in the room. It wasn’t necessarily so comfortable and it somehow seemed like not enough, but it pointed to the work we needed to do afterwards.

Blogging participants of On Fire! workshop pose together. About fifty people total came out for the Monday night interest group. Click photo for names and links. Lots of discussions happened at the rise of the worship. The semi-impromptu post-discussion group. (Thanks for FGC’s Emily for taking & posting this!) FGC Gathering photos on Flickr and Technorati

Last night, at the FGC interest group, something similar happened. Robin, Liz and I had planned out the first half of the meeting. The most important piece: coming early to sit in prayer and holding it well past the time the interest group was supposed to start. The work of Friends needs to be rooted in worship. We need to be still enough to hear the Holy Spirit. If the medium is the message, our message was about the need to not pack ourselves in with agendas. We started predicatbly enough by asking the fifty-or-so participants to give their names and to name a spiritual practice that gives them joy. We asked for space in between speakers to keep worship at the fore and we were blessed by a self-faciliating group; Friends did hold the spaces in between.
Then the three of us told our stories of starting spiritually-focused blogs and coming to find a fellowship that extended beyond our traditional Quaker branches (hence the term “Convergence of Friends”). I went first and explained that I trying to be careful not to do this to lift myself up. My story is simple and like those of many Friends. I was giving testimony. The idea of testimony rang throughout the evening. Robin’s story in particular was very grounded and coming last it took us into the unprogrammed agenda-less time we had left free. Friends rose to give testimony of other “convergent” experiences, for example particpation in the Northwest Women’s Theological Conferences, events of the Western branch of the Christian Friends Fellowship.

At some point a woman I didn’t know stood up without being recognized and she had a pose of supplication. My first though, “oh no!” Then I noticed another Friend, worshipful in spirit, who pointed her to us. She said she was going to sing a song. “Oh no again!” I thought. But this was the facilitation coming off our shoulders. This was a Friend rising to name what we needed and another Friend pointing that we needed to go this direction. It was like the two Powell House Friends: one recognizing in the other a need to share ministry and being willing to break through “proper” group process. At the interest group the song was powerful, it brought us to a place where we could be low and thankful. We were now spontaneously in worship.

Liz, Robin and I had planned some closing worship but this wasn’t the time yet. But it was the time and the suceeding ministry was heartfelt and largely from the Source.
The only funny aside was that we felt we couldn’t let the group go on past our 8:45 end time, for the simple reason that childcare ended then and we needed to let parents go. We mentioned this around 8:30 but twenty minutes later the worship was continuing. Just then the cellphone of the Friend giving ministry went off: it was his daughter calling to ask where he was! He turned off the phone but it gave us the excuse to close the meeting and invite an extended meeting to continue outside. This was wonderful as there were a number of other similarly-themed interest groups (one on youth ministries, the other on the World Gathering of Young Friends) and participants from all three groups met outside and continued the sharing for another two hours.

Lessons? Simply to ground workshop events in worship, let the agenda be empty enough for the Spirit to intervene (having backup exercises just in case it doesn’t is fine!). I don’t think this is a foolproof method. A lot depends on the participants and how willing they are to share in the faciliation and worship. A lot also depends on Friends breaking into the agenda, for both times that was what turned the event from a workshop to a gathered meeting.

* For me the danger is a personal style that has long relied on a last-minute miracles (I was the kind of college student who read all the material through the semester but didn’t actually start writing anything until the night before an assignment was due). I don’t want my theology to be an excuse for my procrastination and I try to test this regularly.

Related posts

Lots of folks have been talking about the Gathering and the Monday night interest group:

• Co-faciliator LizOpp also details some of the process of the Interest Group and of the semi-impromptu multi-generational interest group afterwards. She’s also written about the visits from Freedom Friends Church.
• Co-facilitator RobinM has the first of a handful of promised posts where she emphasizes the importance of grounding and starting the session in worship.
• ChrisM describes how he couldn’t sleep after the Interest Group.
• Dave T has a quick check-in and description.
• Paul L felt a real covering of the meeting halfway through the Interest Group.
• Both AJ Schwanz and Gregg Koskela have posts about a post-Gathering meet-up of some Friends around a picnic table in Oregon.

I’m sure more reaction posts are up there and I’ll link to them as I find them. I suspect that in addition to being the biggest group Quaker blogger photo to date (sorry Gregg!), this will end up being the most blogged about Quaker event yet, at least till Wess gathers West Coasters together next month. I counted at least 20 Quaker bloggers at the Gathering.

bq.. 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?