The first stage will be archiving the conversations currently on QuakerQuaker. There are many year’s worth of great blog posts and invaluable discussion threads. A recent tool built to examine the source material for all the new AI chat bots found that QuakerQuaker is the internet’s second largest online Quaker archive. I want to try to keep that—not for the bots, but for Friends and seekers wanting to learn about Quakerism.

I will need your help. Donations are down this year. And there are new costs if we are to keep this work going: one-time costs for archiving apps and discussion platforms, and new ongoing bills for getting us all connected by email again.

Back when QuakerQuaker started I wrote a bit of a mission statement. I’ll leave it here for you to re-read. If you think this work continues to be important, please help. You can do so here: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=RW96RE86YEFJA

Quakerism is an experiential religion: we believe we should “let our lives speak” and we stay away from creeds and doctrinal statements. The best way to learn what Quakers believe is through listening in on our conversations.

In the last few years, dozens of Quakers have begun sharing stories, frustrations, hopes and dreams for our religious society through blogs. The conversations have been amazing. There’s a palpable sense of renewal and excitement. QuakerQuaker is a daily index to that conversation.

http://quakerspeak.com/welcome-to-quakerspeak-season‑6/?fbclid=IwAR1zbq8SwVPqaPecEEQSAoJrJ7MdSW2htwMxrjq5Xi51UCGMzI9MQt7deDE

I was grateful that the “who” question was there — testifying that we are not centered on ourselves, dutifully inventorying our Quaker markers. For me, evangelism (paying urgent attention to the “who”) puts all those other testimonies in perspective. All those testimonies are “signs and wonders,” qualities of the Light by which we as the Body of Christ participate in making Jesus visible.

https://blog.canyoubelieve.me/2019/02/evangelistic-malpractice.html

As I am working on a revision of my book on the Quaker ministry, I am revisiting historical accounts of times when a minister was given guidance (eldering, oversight, nurture, discipline). As part of that work, I will from time to time post “case studies” on this blog.

Nuturing ministers: Case studies, Intro

There are 48 workshops to choose from this year, which is about the normal number for recent years. I used Archive.org to look back and the biggest year I could dig up was 2006, when 73 workshops were offered. Gathering attendance has dropped since then but I also suspect 73 selections were a bit ambitious. The current normal is more suited to the Gathering size. There are lots of familiar workshop leaders. Are there any that stand out for you? Fell free to drop recommendations (or promote your own workshop if you’re doing one!) in the comment section.

https://www.fgcquaker.org/connect/gathering/programs-and-events/workshops

The ‘check-in’ is a fundamental element in the repertoire of a facilitator. There’s no better way to start a session and get everyone present, and there’s no faster way to discover what’s going on under the surface of a group. It’s such a simple an effective process tool that I figured it must have a rich and well-documented history. But it’s proved quite tricky to research, partly because its name is shared with the hotel and airline industries, but partly also, I suspect, because of its simplicity.

Where to start? With such a basic human process, the line through history will surely be tangled and confused. But, for the sake of starting somewhere, I’ll start with the Quakers.

I’ve left a comment on the post with missing links. I’ll leave a version of it here. Regular readers will predict that I’ll start with Rachel Davis DuBois, the New Jersey-born Friend who put together racial reconciliation groups in the mid-20th century. She later turned some of the process into “Dialogue Groups” in the mid-1960s and traveled the U.S. teaching them; these evolved into modern Quaker worship sharing and clearness committees.

Those late-60s processes were picked up by the younger Friends, who (no surprise) were also into antiwar activism and communitarian politics. They were codified and secularized by the Movement for a New Society, which started in Philadelphia in the early 70s but had communities all over the Western world. Much of their work was focused on training people in their style of group process and a lot of our facilitator tools these days are disseminated MNS tools. Many MNS’ers were involved with Quakers and many more filtered back into the Religious Society of Friends in later years.

A lot of this relatively recent history has been forgotten. Many Quakers will tell you these things all date from the very start of the Friends movement. There’s definitely through-lines and echos and inspirations through our history but I’d love to see us appreciate Rachel Davis DuBois and the people who made some very useful adaptations that have helped Quakers continue to evolve and (almost) thrive.

About 9 years ago I began to give voice to a lifelong frustration of mine. The frustration was that I cannot answer the question “What do Quakers believe?” I would always answer the questions somewhat defensively. I would say, “it’s kind of hard to know what Quakers believe, but let me tell you what I believe.” Or I would say, “well, it’s hard to know what Quakers believe today but let me tell you what Quakers believed at the beginning.” Or I would say what I thought Quakers believed and I would hope that no one else was listening because I did not want to be overcalled.

I think Arthur does a pretty good job tackling a very tough task. He barely even mentions Howard Brinton’s “SPICES.”

http://quakerspeak.com/9‑core-quaker-beliefs/

About 12 years ago, the Abington meetinghouse caretaker, Dave Wermeling, found an old sketch of Lay in a box. A short biography on worn brown paper was glued to back of the drawing. “I thought, ‘Who is this, and how can you not be talking about him?’” Wermeling recalled.

I’ve long admired the story of Benjamin Lay. I’m not sure that the general public reading these articles is quite realizing that Quaker disownment wasn’t a full shunning. As far as I know he continued to be influential with Quakers, for his passion if not his strategy. Lay went far, far ahead of the Quakers of the time. His stunts were awesome, but drenching yearly meeting attenders with pig blood and publishing books without permission was going to get you uninvited from formal decision making meetings.

I would very much hope that if any of us moderns were transported back to that era, we would find the conditions of human bondage so outrageous that we would all go full Benjamin Lay: disrupt meetings, shatter norms, get disowned by our religious bodies. If you read the history of eighteen-century Quaker activism in the Philadelphia area you’ll see there were many tracts starting in the earliest years of the Quaker colonies. There were lots of Quakers who felt slavery was morally wrong. But few felt the empowerment to break from social conventions the way Lay did. But that’s kind of the nature of prophecy. I would be suspicious of any candidate for prophet that is liked by the administrative bodies of their time. What kind of complacency are we demonstrating by our inactions today?

https://www.philly.com/philly/news/quakers-benjamin-lay-dwarf-abolitionist-slavery-abington-friends-meeting-20180419.html?mobi=true