Tag Archives ⇒ vision

Aggregating our Webs

June 16, 2005
· Martin Kelley

On Beppe­blog, Joe talks about start­ing a clear­ness com­mit­tee [link long gone]to assist him with his strug­gles with Friends. But he also touch­es on some­thing I’ve cer­tain­ly also expe­ri­enced: the impor­tant role this elec­tron­ic fel­low­ship has been playing:

Just the oth­er day I real­ized that I felt more com­fort­able being a Friend since not attend­ing Meet­ing on an ongo­ing basis. My ongo­ing “e‑relationships” via the blo­gos­phere has helped me stay “con­nect­ed”. Observe how pleased I respond­ed to Liz’s recent post (the one that I quot­ed in the post before this one). It’s as if I’m starv­ing for good fel­low­ship of some kind or another.

There’s even more talk about internet-mediated discernment/fellowship in the “com­ments to his followup.

Giv­en all this, I’m not sure if I’ve ever high­light­ed a “vision for an expand­ed Quak­er Ranter site” that I put togeth­er for a “youth lead­er­ship” grant in Third Month:

I’ve been blessed to meet many of my [age] 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 these young min­is­ters and deep­en their under­stand­ing of gospel order. I would like to put togeth­er an inde­pen­dent online pub­li­ca­tion… This would explic­it­ly reach out across the dif­fer­ent braches of Friends and even to var­i­ous seek­er move­ments like the so-called “Emer­gent Church Movement.”

As I’ve writ­ten I was select­ed for one of their fel­low­ships (yea!!) but for an amount that was point­ed­ly too low to actu­al­ly fund much (huh??). There’s some­thing in the air how­ev­er. “Quak­er Dhar­ma” is ask­ing sim­i­lar ques­tions and Russ Nel­son’s “Plan­etQuak­er” is a sometimes-awkward auto­mat­ed answer (do its read­ers real­ly want to see the ultra­sounds?). I’m not sure any of these com­bo sites could actu­al­ly work bet­ter than their con­stituent parts. I find myself unin­ter­est­ed in most group blogs, aggre­ga­tors, and for­mal web­sites. The invi­did­ual voice is so important.

And don’t we already have a group project going with all the cross-reading and cross-linking we’re doing. Is that what Joe was talk­ing about? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve found some new inter­est­ing blog­ger and went to post a wel­come in their com­ments only to have found that Joe or LizOpp had beat­en me to it. (Some of us are to the point of read­ing each oth­er’s minds. I think I could prob­a­bly write a great Beppe or LizOpp post and vice-versa.) Is this impulse to for­mal­ize these rela­tion­ships just a throw­back to old ideas of publishing?

Maybe the web’s form of hyper­link­ing is actu­al­ly supe­ri­or to Old Media pub­lish­ing. I love how I can put for­ward a strong vision of Quak­erism with­out offend­ing any­one – any put-off read­ers can hit the “back” but­ton. And if a blog I read posts some­thing I don’t agree with, I can sim­ply choose not to com­ment. If life’s just too busy then I just miss a few weeks of posts. With my “Sub­jec­tive Guide to Quak­er Blogs” and my “On the Web” posts I high­light the blog­gers I find par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ing, even when I’m not in per­fect the­o­log­i­cal uni­ty. I like that I can have dis­cus­sions back and forth with Friends who I don’t exact­ly agree with.

I have noth­ing to announce, no clear plan for­ward and no mon­ey to do any­thing any­way. But I thought it’d be inter­est­ing to hear what oth­ers have been think­ing along these lines.

On the Web: Where’s that Power of the Lord?

June 16, 2005
· Martin Kelley

The new Quak­er Life has an arti­cle by Charles W. Heav­ilin ask­ing “Where’s the Pow­er of the Lord Now?”:http://www.fum.org/QL/issues/0506/heaviland.htm
bq. In our post­mod­ern, frag­ment­ed world, where now is the pow­er of the Lord among Quak­ers? There is a vast divide between the accounts of ear­ly Friends and that of con­tem­po­rary Friends. Most mod­ern Quak­er report­ing is per­func­to­ry — accounts with the spir­i­tu­al qual­i­ty of recipes in a cook­book. Con­ver­sa­tions at Quak­er gath­er­ings now revolve around declin­ing atten­dance or bleak assess­ments of the spir­i­tu­al shal­low­ness of soci­ety. Sel­dom, if ever, is there any men­tion of the pow­er of the Lord.
Great stuff. He gets into the way our cul­ture has neg­a­tive­ly influ­enced Friends. After you read it check out “C Wess Daniel’s”:http://gatheringinlight.blogspot.com/2005/06/i‑appreciate-article-charles-has.html com­men­tary on the article:
bq. Sim­ply put, I think we need to learn the sto­ries of the Quak­er church once again, and begin to tell them, live them, and move for­ward in this tra­di­tion that has been past down to us as one that has been formed by the Spir­it of Christ through such won­der­ful lead­ers as Fox, Fell, Bar­clay, Wool­man, etc.

Term of the Day: Therepeutic Individualism

April 2, 2005
· Martin Kelley

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
· Martin Kelley

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 Non​vi​o​lence​.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.

Danny: Looking for a Real Religion

March 21, 2005
· Martin Kelley

Here’s an email from Dan­ny, a new friend who I met at last week’s FGC-sponsored “Youth Min­istries Con­sul­ta­tion.” I liked his obser­va­tions and asked if I could share this on the blog. I’m glad he said yes, since it’s a good per­spec­tive on where one con­vinced 19 year old Friend is at.
Update: “Here’s Dan­ny’s new blog, Rid­ing the Whale”:http://Quakernow.blogspot.com/

Con­tin­ue read­ing →

On the Web: Transmitting Quakerism and Being There for God

March 16, 2005
· Martin Kelley

Liz Oppen­heimer has post­ed an extra­or­di­nary account of how “Friends trans­mit­ted Quak­erism to her over time”:http://thegoodraisedup.blogspot.com/2005/03/Quakerism-from-generation-to.html. I find myself at a loss of words to sum it up – you have to read it for your­self and I strong­ly rec­om­mend you do. Here’s just the mer­est snippet:
bq. It took me years to under­stand that there was much, much more to Quak­erism than just meet­ing for wor­ship… I had yet to under­stand the con­cepts of cor­po­rate dis­cern­ment or Gospel Order or wait­ing on the Spir­it for guid­ance. None of my peers or spir­i­tu­al friends at the time were talk­ing with me about this stuff; and I have no rec­ol­lec­tion of any­one mak­ing the Quak­er decision-making process more explic­it at the time.
Liz will be offer­ing a work­shop at this year’s “FGC Gathering”:www.FGCQuaker.org/gathering. The descrip­tion sound­ed great but if this post is any­thing like the shar­ing that will go on in that work­shop, then you’ll want to be there.
In a sim­i­lar vein, the Con­trar­i­an Quak­er explains “I’m not here to be seen by men. I’m here to wor­ship God”:http://Quakerman.blogspot.com/2005/03/i‑go-along.html; “New peo­ple, as they walk in, are met with smiles and intro­duc­tions but by their sec­ond or third vis­it they end up stand­ing in the midst of a gab­bing throng com­plete­ly ignored after meet­ing for wor­ship… I sim­ply decid­ed that I was here to wor­ship God.”

QuaCarol: You Don’t Want to Be Ranters Anymore

March 11, 2005
· Martin Kelley

By QuaC­arol
Some­times I have to lift up com­ments and make them their own posts. Here’s one of QuaC­arol’s reply to “Uh-Oh: Beppe’s Doubts”:/martink/archives/000544.php: “I see this com­mu­ni­ty of blog­gers, reach­ing out to each oth­er and con­nect­ing, when meet­ings (and here I ven­ture to say “all”) are focused on keep­ing their pam­phlet racks filled, rather than post­ing URLs on their bul­letin boards or cre­at­ing a newcomer’s URL handout.”

Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Uh-Oh: Beppe’s Doubts

March 9, 2005
· Martin Kelley

I’ve occa­sion­al­ly thought of Beppe­blog’s  Joe Gua­da as my blog­ging Quak­er dopple­ganger. More than once he’s writ­ten the post I was about to write. And more than one impor­tant arti­cle of mine start­ed as com­men­tary to one of his insight­ful articles.

So I’m wor­ried that he’s writ­ten the first of a mul­ti­part arti­cle ask­ing Is it time to leave Quak­erism. I’m wor­ried not just that Quak­erism would lose a bright Light, etc., etc, but because I know that now I’m going to have to pub­licly mull over the ques­tion that’s a con­stant back­ground hum that I try not to think about.

Update: just to prove my point, my com­ment to Joe’s post was more inter­est­ing that my post point­ing to his post. Here’s the com­ment I just left there:

There was one day in wor­ship a few years ago right around the time when my wife Julie decid­ed to leave Quak­erism when I had this odd vision. I imag­ined us as boul­ders the front edge of a water­fall. Thou­sands of gal­lons of water swept over us every day, erod­ing and scar­ring our sur­face and under­min­ing the frag­ile base we were on. When Boul­der Julie final­ly dis­lodged and fell off the precipice of Quak­erism, I real­ized that one of the rocks that had held me in place was now gone and now there was going to be even more water and pres­sure try­ing to push me off.
I say this because you’ve become one of my blog­ging rocks, some­one who con­firms that I’m not a total nut­case. If you went over the edge I’d have to reassess my sit­u­a­tion and at least take a peek down myself. At the very least I’m going to have to blog about why I’ve stayed so long. I’m sure this is only part one to my com­men­tary on these issues…