Tag Archives ⇒ ministry

Letter Regarding FUM Finances

October 23, 2025
· Martin Kelley

I thought that the expose on Earl­ham Col­lege was going to be this week’s Quak­er finan­cial melt-down sto­ry but Friends Unit­ed Meet­ing did the prover­bial “hold my beer” and announced it’s in seri­ous finan­cial per­il.

Friends Unit­ed Meet­ing (FUM) is the largest Quak­er mem­ber­ship orga­ni­za­tion in the world. Sim­pli­fy­ing quite a bit, it grew out of the Gur­neyites, the more churchy branch of Quak­ers who often adopt­ed min­istry and inter­na­tion­al mis­sions. Those mis­sions are the rea­son why there are so many Quak­ers in places like East Africa and Bolivia. Most of the world­wide body of Friends are part of that move­ment and many are for­mal mem­bers of FUM.

The­o­log­i­cal­ly, today’s FUM is a “big tent” asso­ci­a­tion that tries to hold togeth­er a wild­ly diver­gent set of beliefs and cul­tur­al norms, with gen­der and sex­u­al­i­ty being the most com­mon light­ning point. There’s always cor­ners of FUM threat­en­ing to leave or threat­en­ing to with­hold mem­ber­ship dues. There was seri­ous talk in the 1990s of a “realign­ment” that would split up FUM along evan­gel­i­cal and uni­ver­sal­ist lines but some­how that’s nev­er quite hap­pened and the tent has held. To its cred­it the big tent approach means that FUM has been a key facil­i­ta­tor of cross-branch dia­logue among North Amer­i­can Friends.

The finan­cial prob­lem is pret­ty straight­for­ward, a sto­ry as old as nonprofits:

Our audits have not been done in a time­ly fash­ion, inter­nal finan­cial con­trols have been miss­ing, and we did not ensure that good account­ing prac­tices were being fol­lowed. We have not been care­ful enough in review­ing finan­cial infor­ma­tion giv­en to us or in devel­op­ing the abil­i­ty of new board mem­bers to under­stand FUM’s com­plex finan­cial structure.

I’m gen­uine­ly sur­prised that FUM lead­er­ship was this asleep at the wheel but I sym­pa­thize. A non­prof­it I worked for in the 1990s went through a sim­i­lar cri­sis when a few years of back­logged audits came back and showed us we were in far worse shape than we had imag­ined. The oth­er major U.S. Quak­er asso­ci­a­tion, Friends Gen­er­al Con­fer­ence, went though some­thing sim­i­lar in the 1980s; the sto­ry I’ve heard is that the lawyers told them they were broke to go bank­rupt and they fig­ured their way out of the finan­cial hold.

Many non­prof­its go through boom and bust cycles but this sounds more than just that. I do hope Friends Unit­ed Meet­ing can pull through.

Letter Regarding FUM Finances
Let­ter Regard­ing FUM Finances 

Dear Friends, we will put the bad news first: at our cur­rent income and expen­di­ture rate, FUM will…

mailchi.mp mailchi​.mp

YouTube: I’m an Atheist. I Visited a Quaker Church.

August 2, 2025
· Martin Kelley

Jared is an athe­ist YouTu­ber whose schtick is vis­it­ing dif­fer­ent church­es. I’ve watched him before so was thrilled to see he’s now vis­it­ed Friends.

He’s very good at observ­ing and under­stand­ing and explain­ing what he’s seen. There’s no sub­stan­tive inac­cu­ra­cies here. He had a deeply mov­ing expe­ri­ence that he says he won’t forget.

That said, he felt dis­ap­point­ed that the meet­ing he vis­it­ed wasn’t more dis­tinct­ly Quak­er, call­ing it a “bait and switch almost.” The only min­istry was polit­i­cal and while he does a good job defend­ing the speaker’s com­pas­sion he says that it felt “solemn but not sacred” to him, which I think is a fas­ci­nat­ing way of putting it:

I’m real­ly inter­est­ed in the hand­ful of peo­ple who feel like they’ve touched God. I don’t, but It’s still a pro­found thing to talk to some­body who’s don’t that.

He grew up Pen­te­costal and knew that there was a lot of crossover with ear­ly Friends. That’s what he was look­ing for. I think his obser­va­tions on this was prob­a­bly pret­ty fair for most Lib­er­al Friends meet­ings today. I think there are oth­er seek­ers like him want­i­ng to expe­ri­ence some­thing more dis­tinc­tive­ly and reli­gious­ly Quak­er. Over­all, an awe­some video, very recommended.

Ready to die for the silence

July 15, 2025
· Martin Kelley

I’m pret­ty used to the stan­dard rhetor­i­cal paths of Quak­er sto­ries after so many years as an edi­tor but every once in a while one comes along and knocks my socks off.

I’ve writ­ten before1 that I’m not a fan of the “when to speak in meet­ing” flow­charts Friends some­times post in the meet­ing­house to dis­cour­age vocal min­istry. One is expect­ed to test an incom­ing mes­sage against half a dozen queries and only speak if they can clear them all in the space of an hour. A lot of new­com­ers see these and decide to just keep quiet.

Chris­tine Hart­mann was just one of these new atten­ders. She writes “after study­ing all this, I decid­ed to hold off speak­ing in meet­ing, if at all pos­si­ble, for fear of get­ting it wrong.” She was so care­ful and so scrupu­lous that her silence almost cost her her life. I’m not kid­ding. Lit­er­al­ly. Read the arti­cle. Wild, wild.

(Yes, there are dis­rup­tive new­com­ers who give inap­pro­pri­ate min­istry in Quak­er wor­ship. In my expe­ri­ence they’re rarely the ones sit­ting down and study­ing flow­charts. The vis­i­tors these charts deter are the care­ful and thought­ful ones who are already tying them­selves in knots won­der­ing whether they should speak. These are the folks you want to encourage.) 

Just a moment...
Just a moment… 
www.friendsjournal.org www​.friend​sjour​nal​.org

Presentation on the Underground Railroad in South Jersey

May 5, 2023
· Martin Kelley

Locals: I’m real­ly excit­ed about a pro­gram Crop­well Meet­ing is host­ing this Sun­day: local his­to­ri­an Paul W. Schopp will come and talk about his­tor­i­cal Black towns around Marl­ton, South Jer­sey, and their involve­ment in the Under­ground Railroad.

The Quak­er con­nec­tion is not just the venue of course. The ear­li­est Friends in the Marl­ton area enslaved Africans, which was the norm among Quak­ers in the ear­li­est colo­nial days. From my read­ings, slav­ery was on the decline (immi­grat­ing Ger­mans were a more desir­able work­force) until the dis­rup­tions of the French and Indi­an war threat­ened to kick the slave trade back into high gear, which in turn inspired a new gen­er­a­tion of Quak­er abo­li­tion­ism. This includ­ed Joshua Evans, of what lat­er became Marlton/Cropwell, who was a trav­el­ing com­pan­ion of the more well-remembered John Wool­man in his anti­slav­ery trav­el­ing ministry.

By the ear­ly nine­teenth cen­tu­ry, most Quak­er towns in South Jer­sey had freed Black towns near­by, on land typ­i­cal­ly deed­ed by Quak­er farm­ers. Friends have a ten­den­cy to some­times over-sell our his­tor­i­cal involve­ment in the Under­ground Rail­road but the real key to the rail­road­’s suc­cess were these freed Black towns. In the area around Crop­well, a town called Mil­ford (now Kres­son) served this role. I don’t know any­thing about it specif­i­cal­ly but Schopp has stud­ied it, along with lots of these his­tor­i­cal Black towns and I’m very inter­est­ed to learn more about them.

Fol­low the link below for some more on Mil­ford, includ­ing a TV episode fea­tur­ing two descen­dants of the Tru­itt fam­i­ly and part­ly filmed at Crop­well Meeting.

https://​crop​wellquak​ers​.org/​m​a​y​-​7​-​p​a​u​l​-​w​-​s​c​h​opp

Circling around, and surprising nudges toward renewed ministry and plainness

February 19, 2023
· Martin Kelley

From LizOpp, back on the blog:

I have come to believe that I live my life not in a straight line from birth to death but in a series of small and large cir­cles: from birth to learn­ing; from growth to for­get­ting; from remem­ber­ing to pride­ful liv­ing; from bro­ken­ness to humil­i­ty; from deep love and con­nec­tion to sep­a­rate­ness; from despair to faithfulness.

https://​the​goodraisedup​.blogspot​.com/​2​0​2​3​/​0​2​/​r​e​-​e​n​t​r​y​-​t​r​u​t​h​-​a​n​d​-​b​e​i​n​g​-​h​o​u​n​d​e​d​.​h​tml

I too have felt cir­cles com­ing back around. Liz attend­ed last week­end’s work­shop, the first multi-day retreat I’ve led since… check notes… 2014, when R. Scot Miller got me to Kala­ma­zoo, Michi­gan, for Green Pas­tures Quar­ter­ly Meet­ing. Last year I final­ly stopped my meet­ing wan­der­ing and have set­tled down at Crop­well Meet­ing, where I get to be involved in all the sil­ly, light­weight dra­mas that occur when­ev­er a group of peo­ple come together.

There, I’ve felt my spo­ken min­istry return. I was shocked a few months ago when I stood and was giv­en words that start­ed with reflect­ing of the sounds of the leaves blow­ing against the out­side walls, ref­er­enced an atten­der who had just been sweep­ing them, cir­cled to the his­to­ry of the peo­ple who have gath­ered with­in those walls and main­tained the build­ing for wor­ship, moved side­ways into a gen­tle les­son on min­istry in the qui­etist tra­di­tion, pulled it back to Jesus’s words in the Ser­mon on the Mount, and then tied it up in a bow with prayers of thanks to our faith­ful ances­tors and to those today who con­tin­ue to sweep away the ever-returned leaves. Read­ers, let me assure you I don’t think I’ve ever giv­en such coher­ent, bal­anced min­istry and I’m not sure where it came from. But faith­ful­ness is key.

I’ve also felt the nudge to bring back some iden­ti­fi­able plain dress. For years I’ve tend­ed toward what I used to call “Sears plain“2 and dur­ing the work-from-home life I’m some­times lucky if I get through the day with­out still wear­ing my paja­mas. Over the last few weeks I’ve been adding sus­penders to my reg­u­lar clothes. Of course I’ve gone through all the old famil­iar self-questioning: Am I doing this to stand out? Am I try­ing to puff myself up? Is this what faith­ful­ness leads me? But these ques­tions are part of the process and a tug toward plain­ness often pre­cedes out­ward min­istry; in his study Quak­er Jour­nals, Howard Brin­ton not­ed that future min­is­ters often record­ed inward nudges in their teen years and became plain­er in dress to the ridicule of their peers. I’m not a teen and I doubt any­one is going to make fun of me (at least to my face) but I do feel a cer­tain seri­ous­ness of intent come over me when I over­come my nat­ur­al desire for social anonymi­ty and put the sus­penders on.

The awfulness of ministry

February 4, 2023
· Martin Kelley

From Bill Taber’s The The­ol­o­gy of the Inward Imper­a­tive: Min­istry of the Mid­dle Period

The “awful­ness” of becom­ing a min­is­ter lay part­ly in the high expec­ta­tions which the Friends placed on their min­is­ters, for they expect­ed every­thing and noth­ing all at the same time. Min­is­ters were to do every­thing which the Light, the Mas­ter, the Guide, the Heav­en­ly Father (to use some of the var­i­ous names) required of them; they were sup­posed to fol­low every inti­ma­tion and speak every word giv­en them in the light. Thus moth­ers or fathers might have to leave fam­i­ly, work, and friends for years while they trav­eled, not know­ing when the Spir­it would allow them to return. On the oth­er hand noth­ing was expect­ed of them if they felt no imme­di­ate lead­ing, not, of course, could they ever pre­pare for any ser­mon. Thus each new meet­ing, each new fam­i­ly vis­it was a fresh test of faith in which one might be called to rise with­out know­ing what was to be said, or what dif­fi­cult or per­plex­ing words might come forth; even worse, a well-known min­is­ter might be required to remain silent through­out a meet­ing called just for him…

Thus, as their jour­nals make very clear, they expe­ri­enced the body of Christ not as a metaphor but as a liv­ing cli­mate or organ­ism from which — as well as in which — they func­tioned. They saw them­selves not as sep­a­rate lead­ers but as exten­sions of the one Life and Pow­er. They dwelt togeth­er with the oth­er mem­bers in the same pool of the divine pres­ence which blend­ed all souls togeth­er in a won­der­ful uni­ty. Although Quak­er min­is­ters were expect­ed to be very good exam­ples of the Quak­er way of life, they were not required to be lead­ers all the time; they could sink back into the nur­ture and uni­ty of the body until such times as they were clear­ly called to stand forth for the Lord. They knew that if they were “faith­ful,” he would give them both words and pow­er, or the “mat­ter and the “life.” Yet even so, each new meet­ing was a renewed test of faith; as Han­nah Strat­ton (1825 – 1903) of Ohio Year­ly Meet­ing (Con­ser­v­a­tive) put it near the end of her life, “it don’t get easy.”

Ever since I found Friends at age 20, I’ve been drawn to this rather seri­ous vision of min­istry, with its strict demand for a com­plete trust in the Holy Spirit’s prompt­ing in the moment. It’s not easy to square with mod­ern Quak­er prac­tices. I’m due to lead 5.5 hours of a work­shop next week; the top­ic and times are set. But maybe this dilem­ma is not so very new. Trav­el­ing min­is­ters in the qui­etist “mid­dle peri­od” that Tabor describes had itin­er­aries and meet­ings called for them (as for the min­is­ter of his sto­ry that was led to stay silent for a called worship). 

How do you pre­pare when you shouldn’t pre­pare? Per­haps by spend­ing part of a Sat­ur­day after­noon read­ing an old Bill Tabor pam­phlet that’s not on a top­ic you’re expect­ed to lead on the fol­low­ing week. 

I’m read­ing Tabor’s essay in Quak­er Reli­gious Thought num­ber 50, autumn 1980.

Quaker sing song ministry

January 4, 2023
· Martin Kelley

Over on Mastodon (yes you should be there), Aus­tralian Friend Evan start­ed an inter­est­ing dis­cus­sion about Quak­er sing song. This is a form of deliv­er­ing min­istry that seems to date back to the begin­nings of our reli­gious soci­ety but which bare­ly exists any­more. To my untrained ears it sounds more like some­thing you’d hear in a small Catholic or Ortho­dox church. Many years ago Haver­ford Col­lege Library excerpt­ed a field record­ing on a page ded­i­cat­ed to Music and the Ear­ly Quak­ers:

Evan posts to a pas­sage on it from nineteenth-century Quak­er chron­i­cler Thomas Clark­son:

The Quak­ers, on the oth­er hand, nei­ther pre­pare their dis­cours­es, nor vary their voic­es pur­pose­ly accord­ing to the rules of art. The tone which comes out, and which appears dis­agree­able to those who are not used to it, is nev­er­the­less not unnat­ur­al. It is rather the mode of speak­ing which nature impos­es in any vio­lent exer­tion of the voice, to save the lungs. Hence per­sons who have their wares to cry, and this almost every oth­er minute in the streets, are oblig­ed to adopt a tone. Hence per­sons, with dis­or­dered lungs, can sing words with more ease to them­selves than they can utter th6m with a sim­i­lar pitch of the voice. Hence Quaker-women, when they preach, have gen­er­al­ly more of this tone than the Quaker-men, for the lungs of the female are gen­er­al­ly weak­er than those of the oth­er
sex.

I’ve always won­dered if lat­er oppo­si­tion to sing song might have been par­tial­ly moti­vat­ed by the fact that it was favored by women or sound­ed a bit too Catholic for Angli­cans like Clark­son or Quak­ers lean­ing that direction.

There’s a great 2011 post from the now-dormant Quak­er His­tor­i­cal Lex­i­con blog by Illi­nois Friend Peter Laser­sohn. The com­ments are also great.

Where do we hear God’s voice?

January 3, 2019
· Martin Kelley

Angel­i­ca Brown on min­istry from unex­pect­ed sources:

I think about the peo­ple I’ve cared about who have need­ed to talk to them­selves and make nois­es. Who need to pace and say things we don’t under­stand. Spir­it is mov­ing through them, in this incar­na­tion­al way. Remind­ing them they still have bod­ies that can make nois­es, that they still can breath words into being. 

http://​www​.meet​ing​house​.xyz/​e​v​e​r​y​t​h​i​n​g​/​2​0​1​8​/​1​2​/​3​1​/​w​h​e​r​e​-​d​o​-​w​e​-​h​e​a​r​-​g​o​d​s​-​v​o​ice