C. Wess Daniels and Remixing the Quaker Way

A few weeks ago I found a copy of C. Wess Daniels A Convergent Model of Renewal: Remixing the Quaker Tradition in Participatory Culture in my mailbox. I'd been looking forward to this book for a long time. So much so that I tore open the packaging on the long walk back from the road to the house and started reading it.

For those of you who don't know Wess, for the past more than five years he's been the released minister at Camas Friends Church (in Washington state), has been an adjunct professor, and has a PhD from Fuller Seminary. He also makes a mean sauerkraut and is a connoisseur of coffee. Wess has just been named the William R. Rogers Director of Friends Center and Quaker Studies at Guilford College, succeeding Max Carter, who will retire this summer after 25 years there.

In my opinion Guilford could not have made a better choice.

Wess has been one of the foremost articulators of the "convergent Friends" movement and practices what he preaches about Quaker renewal. I've been fortunate enough to have had a number of conversations about the latter topic with him over the past few years. Which is why I looked forward to his book.

Shortly after I received it, I was bound for a series of airplane trips. I usually don't read on planes -- mostly (since I hate flying) I listen to tunes and try to forget that I'm on a plane.  This time I made an exception. I took the book and a yellow marker.  We had not taken off on the first leg of the trip before I had begun highlighting sections.  That's because there's much good stuff herein -- including sections like: 

"Each...formulated branch touts its own rival theories about the origin and core message of the Quaker tradition. Each polarization represents only a piece of the larger tradition." 

I could fill this blog with other such gems. Wess has a clear eye and views us Quakers honestly and provides a good analysis of the issues facing all of our various permutations -- Evangelical, liberal, middle of the road, and so on.  But since this is blog -- and not an academic review -- I need to be brief.

Here's why I think Wess' book bears reading.  It's an articulate, accessible analysis of the current state of North American (primarily) Quakerism. He also provides a cogent portrayal of the participatory and remixing nature of early Quakerism and why it had an such an impact on culture, faith, and life.  He offers a model "for participatory renewal" that has much to commend it. And I do mean much.  These pieces (plus Ben Pink Dandelion's foreword) make the book worth reading.

But, in the interest of integrity (since I am a friend of Wess' and don't want readers to think I didn't read the book critically because of our friendship), I also have to name my quibbles.  One is that there's one contemporary case study -- that of Freedom Friends Church.  Now I find Freedom Friends an amazing place that is doing good work, but I would have rather seen a summary of findings from a number of contemporary meetings/churches Wess feels are implementing the remixing/participatory model he outlines.  One example hardly feels convincing.

Another quibble is the emphasis Wess places on convergent Friends faith and practice as a base for his model. I love his model -- less the descriptor "convergent." Regarding convergent Friends as a model, well, I am not convinced -- never have been. That's probably due in no small part to my skeptical nature. But I think it also has something to do with having been a long-time congregational consultant and seeing how churches and meetings look for the one program/theology/resource/practice that will bring about renewal and then import it wholesale, only to find it doesn't fit them. 

The convergent Friends movement has much to commend it. But it is not, as a package one can import, for all Friends. Instead, I think each Friends meeting/church needs to wrestle with the points that Wess raises in this book -- have we abandoned Quaker tradition as irrelevant in our proclamation of Jesus or have we abandoned Jesus in order to practice our post-modern discover your personal truth with us? And everything in between.  Wess' book lays out some of the questions we all -- Evangelical, ultra-liberal, mushy-moderates, conservatives -- need to consider and struggle with. He shows the potential power of remixing vital tradition and spiritual experiences and language and culture into a vital Quaker way for today. But I don't think it's dependent on the convergent model.

When I mentioned my concern to Wess, he replied, "I only write about the Convergent Friends group a little and make more of it as a gesture towards holding onto both tradition and innovation. The hope of the model is that Friends, within whatever context they are in, will find ways to hold that tension, not so much become a part of the group of 'convergent Friends' who get together have pizza, chocolate chip cookies, and worship together. I guess what I am taking from them is that commitment towards both tradition and innovation more than extrapolating insights from what those groups do."

That said, I fully embrace his model and feel it can truly help Friends move forward in culturally and spiritually relevant ways.

In the book, Wess says:

As a highly participatory faith tradition, Quakerism is uniquely positioned ... in today's culture, reformulating the movement in ways that might bring about renewal.

I would drop the "might." I say that because that's what non-Quakers like Phyllis Tickle and Diana Butler Bass involved in the renewal and emergent movements among Christianity have been saying about the opportunity for Friends today.  Wess has hit the Quaker nail on the head here. His call to remix and become fully participatory is spot on.  

Get the book. Read it. Share it. Ponder it with Friends.

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If you're interested in my own thoughts on Quaker renewal, check out the blog posts titled "A Modest Proposal" or download the booklet here. 

Planting for Spiritual Renewal: Post 5

[Jesus] told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed.  As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow.  But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants.  Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.”  (Matthew 13)

That's a good parable and it holds a lot of spiritual truth.  But, this prairie farmer is not going out scattering seed the way Jesus' farmer did.  Nosirree.  Not when that seed costs $100 an acre and is coming out of his "hobby" pocket.  When Woody and I planted the prairie we wanted to make certain that every expensive seed made contact with the soil in such a way that germination and growth would be optimized.  To that end we hooked up my John Deere tractor to a Great Plains seed drill with a native seed box and designed to open a shallow furrow, drop the warm season grass and wildflower seeds, and cover and slightly compact the furrow, pressing the seed into the soil.  We seeded the field and hillside (as the picture above show) going one lengthwise.  Then we went widthwise.  And then we drove across at angles.  

It was intensive work.  A little tractor pulling a big seeder that weighed as much as it did.  We had to be careful to go the right speed to get the seed into the ground.  Woody drove.  I helped by riding on the back and keeping the seed stirred and jumping off the seed drill to make sure seed was dropping freely and at the right amount.  

All of this serves as a good parable for Quaker revitalization and renewal, I think.  While Jesus is promiscuous in his seed of life sowing, even he recognized that the the seed grows best in ground that's ready to receive it -- good soil.  We have good soil in many of our meetings.  Soil that is ready to receive the Seed. 

To maximize growth, we would do well to use a spiritual seed drill -- to open up furrows, place the seed carefully, cover it over, tamp it down and allow the Spirit to water it and bring it to life.  I referred to some of the seeds in my post immediately previous to this one.  The difference between a prairie and our spiritual life is, though, that careful, intentional seeding is constant for the spiritual life.  We need to be intentional -- individually and corporately -- about getting the Seed in contact with the soil of our souls.  Our seed drills may vary -- spiritual deepening classes, spiritual story telling, outward practices, inward practices, adult religious education opportunities.  We may use a variety (or all!) of these things over and over as we move across the fields of faith.

Intention and frequency are the key words here, I think.  We need, as the Religious Society of Friends to be offering intentional and frequent spiritual seedings in our meetings.  Just as there is no one prairie management plan, so to is there no one plan for spiritual seeding in a meeting.  We need to find what works for our soil -- our souls.  And then get to it. With care, prayer, and intention.

Seeds and Spiritual Renewal: Post 4

When Woody and I planted the prairie we used special seeds.  Because we wanted to plant a prairie and not a lawn or pasture, we started with warm season grass seeds and wildflowers seeds.  “Well, doh?!”  you say.  “Of course you did.” 

While our choice of specialized seeds for the prairie seems obvious, why are we so easy to use generic seed (or no seed plan at all) when it to renewing our spiritual fields?  If we want our fields to flourish, I propose the following seed mix (based on Diana Butler Bass’s recommendations in Christianity after Religion and intentional conversations Beth Collea and I have led on “Friends in a Time of Spiritual Awakening.")

Reconnection with our prime texts
            Friends need to connect deeply with the Bible.  This is true for both liberal and more conservative Friends.  The Bible was the foundational text for the early Friends.  In addition to their personal experience with God, they were well versed in scripture, studied it carefully, and quoted it often.  If we would understand the faith and practice of our movement, we need to reconnect with serious study of the Bible.  Some liberal Friends will need to lay down their resistances that spring from a number of understandable sources (misuse of scripture by others, woundedness, intellectual disagreement, etc) and look at what it says and examine how it informed Friends through the years.  Many programmed Friends will need to lay down their assumption that they “KNOW” what it says and read it again with careful eyes.  It is not enough for them to quote verses memorized as children or stories told so often that we have stopped really reading them.
            Friends need to connect with Quaker texts.  For many years Friends families often had, in addition to the Bible, core Quaker texts in their home libraries.  Fox’s and Woolman’s journals, Barclay’s Apology, Penn’s maxims, Faith and Practice, and so on.  Friends today know occasional favorite Friendly quotations, but have rarely studied these (and other) hallmarks of Quaker faith to find the essence, the life of the Spirit that empowered these Friends.  Of course, there are other Quaker texts that we could study.  We need to use these good seeds that we have – for they abound.

Sharing our spiritual stories
            We need to provide opportunities to share our spiritual stories with each other in community.  What possibilities are there in our meetings for us to share our spiritual journeys and beliefs with each other?  We may be worshiping next to someone we’ve known for years but not have any idea what brought them to Friends or any of the significant, formative spiritual experiences in their lives.  We need to create seeds of such opportunities – based on what will work for our community.  A seed of weekday evening sharing groups?  A five week adult religious education class on First day?

An Inward spiritual practice
            One seed is to enhance our spiritual life through a daily practice.  We might do a gratitude practice.  Or a daily prayer practice.  Or a meditation practice.  Intentional.  Regular.  Deep.  The strength of a regular practice is that it becomes a part of us while helping us deepen.  When regularly practiced, it becomes so valuable to our souls that we miss it and long for it when we aren’t able to do it that day.
            Think of the power of a meeting community doing this together – finding a practice for everyone to do for a month.  And then a different one the next month.  There would be personal and communal deepening from which The Seed could spring.

An Outward spiritual practice
            Another seed is putting our faith into practice in the larger word.  As William Penn said, “True godliness does not turn us out of the world, but helps us better live in it.” (Brent Revised Version).  What outward practices could we do that would connect our inner lives with our outer world?  Both as individuals and as a meeting?  What fits our spiritual life and our passion?  Work in a homeless shelter.  Work for peace?  Till up some of our lawn for a community garden? 

In the same way that a good seed mix makes all the difference in the establish of the kind of prairie Woody and I wanted to see spring forth, so will the above seed mix (with maybe a few local “wildflower seeds” that fit your community thrown in) help the establishment or reestablishment of a thriving Friendly faith community.

Soil and Quaker Renewal: A Prairie? Post 2

In my last post on the Quaker renewal (and by that, I mean the renewal of Quaker faith and practice, not institutions, per se), I spoke about how I feel that many of our meetings are like fallow fields -- involved in the invisible process of rest and renewal and ready to burst forth with life.  And I mentioned the questions that my friend asked me in follow-up, continuing the metaphor:

• tilling = ?
• planting = ?
• seeds of life = ?
• soil = ?
• deep soil = ?
• shallow soil = ?
• plants = ?
• fruit = ?

I am going to address a few of those in this post.  The ones about soil.  After all, in the prairie outside my window, it's the soil that is lying fallow. It's not the plants seed, and so on.  The soil has been getting ready for this coming summer since early last autumn.  The various plants -- warm season grasses (big blue stem, little blue stem, side oats gamma), forbs (black-eyed Susan, coneflowers of various shades, partridge pea, milkweed, ironweed, rattlesnake master, New England aster) -- are either dormant (the grasses) or dead.  All of the plants, dead or dormant, have been shaken by the wind and rain, releasing seeds that scatter across the land.  They've been buried in snow, borne down by the weight and pushed into contact with the soil.  They've been disintegrating.  They look ugly.  The whole prairie, but the world's standard of beauty, looks ugly.  Dead.

And yet that's exactly what's needed.  The dead plants are feeding the soil.  The rain is watering it and breaking it up so that the new seeds can find just enough depth to germinate and spread their roots.  The snow, in addition to adding moisture to the ground, insulated the dead growth from the bitter cold and sped the decomposition process.

So, back to the questions my friend asked.  In Quaker life today, what is the soil?  What is the deep soil? And what is the shallow soil?   Hmmm, her questions remind me a bit of story of Jesus from Matthew 13 --

Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants.  Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.  Whoever has ears, let them hear.”

When I answered my friend (and we were having this conversation Facebook Messenger, hence short answers), I told her I thought "soil = our souls. the soul of the community/meeting."  Upon further reflection, I still think that.  The soil in which the Seed grows best is our individual souls and the soil of the meeting.  Does a meeting have "a soul."  I think it does.  I would argue that the soul of a meeting can be "felt" when we pay attention -- is it a deep, spiritual soul filled with love and life?  Or is it one of discord and disharmony?  Regardless, the Seed longs to spring forth.  But the soil must be made ready.

In the case of the prairie, natural, organic processes are at work.  The afore mentioned decomposition and watering.  But also, as the soil warms, worms and bacteria moving through, breaking it up, preparing it for growth.  Production farmers augment the processes, in their need to turn a profit, with chemical fertilizers and herbicides.  They increase the short term fertility and viability of the soil, but drain it, too.

That's why I believe that the processes for Quaker renewal have to be organic -- growing naturally from the Spirit doing spiritual work within us and the soul of the meeting.  There is no quick fertilization.  While we celebrate the past, we must allow it to die and thereby nurture new grow.  I'm not talking of people here, so much as the ancestor worship we often engage in -- remember how we worked for abolition of slavery, for women's suffrage, against the Vietnam war?  Yep we did.  But those are past.  What work is God calling us to now?  I cannot sit back and just look at photos of prairies past -- even though I have tons of pictures. They are glorious.  And each prairie in last seven years has been different.  Each one is new and unique.  Let's celebrate, let the past feed and inspire us, and move forward!

And, while we may not like to think of ourselves this way, some of us need to be worms and bacteria.  We need to be preparing the soil -- some with prophetic calls for justice as a spiritual enterprise, others by prayer and example, others by leading spiritual formation opportunities, some by...  Much of this may be "underground" and invisible to the larger field of the Society of Friends, but is happening across the US and Canada even now.  We need to do what we can to encourage this work.  And, instead of bemoaning the lack of visible "results", to keep at it.

For there is deep soil out there.  Deep soil, for me, equals souls/spirits who are hungry for God and community and real spiritual work.  Some people and meetings may not even be able to name that hunger.  But they know it when they experience it -- and find it nurtured.  We are called to move out of the shallow soil of being "cultural Quakers," of seeing the Quaker way as a system of ethics or as a "nice way of behaving" (i.e. the Testimonies divorced from their grounding spirituality).

I feel the soil preparation has been going on for a long time.  It needs to continue.  Organically, like I said -- from Friends who feel called to be at work, even behind the scenes. Spring is nearing, though.  Which means  is also time for some above ground work.

• tilling = ?
• planting = ?
• seeds = ?

Fieldward...

Fallowness and Quaker Renewal: A Prairie?

So a friend and I were e-chatting the other day about spiritual dryness and renewal of the Quaker movement in the US and Canada.  That’s not unusual.  I talk with my friends about that a lot.  In that conversation, I said, “I'm hoping we can till spiritual soil in ways that encourage deep sharing and drop seeds of new life in new places and in fields that have lain fallow perhaps.”

Fallow is concept that didn’t use to mean much to me.  Especially when I lived in the city.  But now that I’m on the farm and trying to get a tall grass prairie going, fallow is concept I can relate to.  All winter I’ve been looking out my office window at the prairie covered in deep snow.  Now, after our recent warm-up, the snow is gone.  I walked through it the other day.  It looks dead – grasses dry bent low, mud all around.  Then one of my cats caught a mouse there.  Hmmm, not exactly what I was hoping for, but still a sign of life.

So I’ve begun to understand the concept of fallow.  The prairie went unseeded last year.  Uncultivated.  It is land at rest.  It is waiting.  The seeds planted two year ago have been at work putting down roots.  Prairie grass is like that.  It goes deep.  Then it spreads.  The results are rarely seen above ground for two or three years.  The coming summer will be the third year since planting and cultivation.  It should be the year that the grasses really take off.  Life should abound.

As I also told my friend, it seems to me that many Quaker meetings are like a fallow prairie at rest.  Their spiritual soil is not dead.  It has just been quiescent, like a field out of production. Now it is ready to be tilled, planted, tended, and will spring forth with spiritual fruit.

Then my friend asked (she’s really good at questions), “So…

·         tilling = ?

·         planting = ?

·         seeds of life = ?

·         soil = ?

·         deep soil = ?

·         shallow soil = ?

·         plants = ?

·         fruit = ?

·

Indeed!  What do those things equal for Friends today -- for the Quaker way which we love and want to share?

Stay tuned…

Living in a Time of Great Spiritual Awakening: A Conversation Among Friends

Are we living in a time of troubling trends?
• declining church/meeting attendance,
• dissatisfaction with institutional religion,
• the rise of “None” as the most common religious affiliation on surveys
• a feeling that old structures and programs don’t hold the new Life?”

Or, are we in a time of dynamic Spiritual Awakening and renewal?

Want to be part of the conversation??  If so, join us --

Quakers Revitalization -- Come Chat About It!

This is a time of renewed interest in Quaker life and spirituality. This interest is shown by the number of Quaker titles on amazon.com (and their strong sales) and through other things, such as Beliefnet.com's "Belief-O-Matic." Thirty thousand people a day try Belief-O-Matic. An issue of Newsweek magazine reported that a "disproportionate number" of respondents to the quiz identified themselves as "liberal Quakers." The article notes that the page on the BeliefNet web site devoted to Quakers has become one of Beliefnet's top fifty links! So why aren't our Meetinghouses bursting with newcomers? Join us at Quaker Center, January 25-27, for a weekend of spiritual reflection around this question and, more importantly, exploring God's future for Friends. It will be a time focused on positive language, idea generation, learning, sharing, videos, and more using interactive techniques and tools. You'll come away from this weekend with a fresh sense of God's working with and among us. Registration is open now for A Modest Proposal: Participating in God's Future for Friends at quakercenter.org. ABOUT THE PROGRAM LEADER: J. Brent Bill is the author of many articles and books, including Sacred Compass: The Way of Spiritual Discernment, Holy Silence: The Gift of Quaker Spirituality, Mind the Light, Learning to See with Spiritual Eyes, and the recently released Awaken Your Senses: Exercises for Exploring the Wonder of God. He also wrote A Modest Proposal for the Revitalization of the Quaker Message in the United States which has been the basis for a number of retreats across the United States. Brent is a Quaker minister, author, photographer, and congregational consultant and the coordinator for FGC's New Meetings Project. Brent graduated from Wilmington College and the Earlham School of Religion and has worked as a local church pastor, yearly meeting staff member, and seminary faculty member. For eleven years he was the executive vice president of, and congregational consultant for, the Indianapolis Center for Congregations. The Center for Congregations is a project of Lilly Endowment, Inc and is dedicated to helping congregations find and use the resources they need to thrive. Brent and his wife Nancy live on Ploughshares Farm, which is fifty acres of Indiana farmland that is being reclaimed for native hardwood forests and warm season prairie grasses. Download Quaker Center's full 2013 program schedule here. Yours in service, Kathy and Bob Runyan Co-Directors Ben Lomond Quaker Center

Quakers and a Jackson Browne Quote that Applies (at least for me)

I'm a big fan of singer/songwriters.  And Jackson Browne's one of my favorites.  Recently I was listening to one of his solo live acoustic albums. When he's taking requests, a fan yells out for "Peaceful Easy Feeling."  Which, of course, is not a Jackson Browne song.  But he's game and gets ready to sing it (after pointing out he didn't write it) and then he says he has trouble with some of the lyrics, particularly in the section that goes:

And I found out a long time ago
What a woman can do to your soul.
Oh, but she can't take you anyway,
You don't already know how to go.

"Well," Browne said, "I flat out disagree with that."

I felt the same way when reading a couples of blogs written by Friends (and friends) the past week or so.  My first disagreement arose when I read David John's Quaker Life article titled "Moving Forward or Circling the Wagons."  David's a thoughtful Quaker theologian and the article has some good points, such as "There are numerous occasions inviting us to examine our identity and our purpose" and "embodying [the Testimonies] means we move as Christ calls us and enter the places where living these convictions takes us."

But when he writes "But one thing is certain: God is not calling us to be Quakers," "Well," Brent said, "I flat out disagree with that."

Strongly.  Perhaps that is true for David and some others, but it's not true for me -- and others I know.  Some of us do feel that God is calling us to be Quakers.  That's why we are Quakers -- we felt called to it, led to it, introduced to a way of faith that spoke to our condition in a manner that no other form of Christianity did.  I grew up a Friend -- but it was in college that I became convinced that this was the faith tradition for me.  And that was not just some intellectual assent.  It felt like then -- and remains to this day -- a call.  I am called to be a Quaker.  I think the RSoF is being called by God to be Quaker.

I do not say that being Quaker is about preserving Quakerism and its institutions, but rather living out a particular faith tradition that speaks to our conditions -- and to which we can invite others seeking for a vital, living faith that has emphasis on both personal encounters with God and practicing the results of those encounters in the wider world.

Another blog (especially the title!) that pricked my spirit was Micah Bale's "Being Quaker Is Not the Point."  "Well," Brent said again, "I flat out disagree with that."  For me, being Quaker is precisely the point.  That's because my understanding of what it means to be a Quaker encompasses embodying "the living presence of his [Jesus'] Spirit."  Again, I am not concerned with preserving an "-ism" or it's institutions, but I think the Quaker message and the way it impacts our daily lives of faith and practice can be a profound experience of faith for those of us who claim to be Quaker and on those who are seeking for a faith that "brings them to Christ and leaves them there," as George Fox said.  Oops, I'll probably get in trouble for invoking Fox instead of Jesus, but heavens to Betsy (not Betsy Ross), what an amazing concept.  Introduce seekers (and ourselves?!) to Quaker faith whereby they experience the life-changing power of the ever-living and ever-loving Christ who can speak to their condition.  A faith that is not some goofy new-age concoction but is rooted in Christian practice and faithful adherence by saints (and sinners) for over 350 years! 

I, for one, want a faith that is both lived in the present condition of my life and grounded in tradition.  And so, for me, being Quaker is the point.  It speaks to my spiritual condition -- and, I am finding in my ministry of writing books about spirituality and at FGC in nurturing the start of new Quaker worship groups and meetings, to others, too.  People are drawn to what the Quaker message and way stand for and so.  So much so that where groups do not exist, they want to create them. 

I find these ideas of not being called to be Quaker or the point is not to be Quaker offensive, hurtful, and dismissive of those of us who have intentionally and spiritually felt called to be Quaker, have made it a central point of our faith, and who have worked to spread that message as a main part of our message.  I find it dismissive of that great cloud of witnesses who have gone before us -- some of whom gave their lives for this message and way of faith life.  I find it dismaying and tinged with a touch of self-loathing. 

While I admit I am quickly approaching geezerhood (if not already there) and more prone than ever to curmudgeonliness, I don't think that's the reason these pieces bothered me.  In fact, I don't mind being bothered, or shaken, or challenged in my thinking.  They bothered me because of the reasons stated above.  If you do not feel that God is calling you to be Quaker or that being Quaker is not the point, then perhaps you're in the wrong place.  Perhaps some new movement based on your interpretation of what God's work in this day and age are is where you belong.  You can root it in your particular understanding of scripture, tradition (well, probably not tradition -- after all, shrines and looking backward are a bad thing), and what the face of faith looks like today.  Burn down the meetinghouses, erase a history of faithful Christians, deny the spiritual wisdom of a collective community that has written spiritually and prophetically for hundreds of years, and spurn authority outside of like-minded others.

"Well," Brent said, "I flat out disagree with that."

Sigh.

As for me, as I stated I do feel that I am called to the Quaker faith and its way of working in my life and the world.  I feel in the deepest parts of my soul that being Quaker is point.  And I will continue to work for the expansion of this way of faith and life.  Not -- just in case you haven't picked up on this, dear reader -- to save institutions or an "ism", but because it is a faith that has changed my life and still has the power to change others.  I will continue to write about the spiritual riches of this ancient/modern faith and its efficacy.  I will support those who labor in the fields which are white unto harvest. And I will go on bearing the name Quaker as a servant of the Living Christ who was not born yesterday, but is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow and continues to teach his people himself.

-- Brent

Shallow Small Group

Now this could be the kind of small group that would actually attract people to your congregation...

"Will All Our Visitors Please Stand?"

“Will all our visitors please stand?” If someone finally is brave enough to walk through the doors of your church, the last thing they want is to be singled out. They probably don’t know the songs you’re singing or the prayers or responsive readings you’re reading. Depending on the translation of the Bible you use, the scripture may not make much sense, and they probably have no idea where the bathroom is. So why add to the discomfort by making them stand so everyone can stare at them? Also, calling someone a visitor already implies they are simply passing through, that they’re not a part of things. Instead of “visitor” or “guest,” try something less loaded like “newcomer.” Better yet, walk up to them, introduce yourself and learn their name.  from Christian Piatt's "Ten Cliches Christians Should Never Use."

Ah, my research on new congregations for FGC's New Meetings Project says this over ... and over... and over again.  Now, with every head bowed and every eye closed ....

-- Brent

A Modest Proposal: For the Revitalization of the Quaker Message in the United Staes

The only things that this post (and many of the ones that follow over the next few days or weeks) and Swift's book share are the title and the satire behind the title. The thoughts that follow are not satirical ala' Swift. The title certainly is satirical as what I am going to propose is far from modest.

I have been thinking about this topic for many years, beginning with when I was a 20-something college student who reengaged with the Religious Society of Friends after having grown up up among Quakers and then sojourning away from them for a brief period.

The most recent impetus to address this topic came, though, not from years of thought, but from my being asked to participate in Friends United Meeting's "Transforming Lives: A Conference for Emerging Leaders" held September 17-19 in Richmond, Indiana. The topic assigned to me was "Ministry in North America."

Toward the end of my presentation, I admitted that I had some interest in the future of the Friends message in North America. Particularly, I said, I was not so much interested in the institutional survival of the Religious Society of Friends (and it's various structures) as I was a recapturing of the vitality of the Quaker understanding of the Gospel -- a Good News that combines the story and work of Christ Jesus with the amazing power of the testimonies as an understanding of how the Gospel is to be lived. I then showed some statistics that appear to indicate there is widespread interest in the general public in the Quaker understanding of the Gospel and yet we, as the Friends "church," are failing to reach out to people who seek places to connect with this message.

One of the workshop participants, Stephen Dotson, engaged me with several questions. And I admitted that while I have had lots of thoughts on this issue, I have kept them mostly to myself, trying to stay out of the way of the primarily Young Adult Friends and others in the Convergent Friends movement who are working in very practical ways, I my opinion, on just this issue. I also admitted that I was a geezer (I will be 60 next year and wonder how I became one of the oldsters instead of one of young Turks of my college/seminary days) and so may be a bit out of touch.

Still, I make my living as a congregational consultant and a fair amount of research and information about American religious life passes over my desk and computer. And I do have a heart for the Quaker message -- a message that I would like to see more broadly lived out. I do not have the desire to have it lived out, as I said, because of any desire to keep institutions alive (indeed I think most Quaker institutions have to change radically or they will become increasingly anachronistic -- more about that later), but rather because I think it is a life/soul changing message that can bring hope and life to many who are hungering for it.

At the workshop, Stephen, while playfully agreeing with me that I was a geezer, asked how he and his compatriots in the emerging leader (or whatever you want to call it) movement could tap the wisdom of geezers such as me. I admit to having had no answer that day. I'm not sure I have a very complete one now. But that challenge has stayed with me and so, I have decided, that for my part, the best way for me to share any wisdom/ideas/hopes was through doing this series of blog posts that I'm calling "A Modest Proposal."

In it, I am going to share some of the presentation I made to the workshop the other day -- based on research I've read and things I've learned in working with congregations -- and thoughts about how the revitalization of the Quaker message in the United States might be achieved. I'm going to try to do this in short, narrowly focused posts that hopefully will build on each other and may just engender some thinking or discussion.

I have no illusion that anybody will read this. Nor do I have any particular desire that "my program" be adopted by anybody. I just feel led to share it and hope that it might be of some benefit to those who are thinking about the Quaker message and life in the 21st century.
I have often found a challenge -- and an inspiration -- in the words of Friend Edgar G. Dunstan -
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The early Friends were fully assured that they had a message for all men -- not merely that one or other of their testimonies was specially relevant to their own time, but that message in its totality, in its wholeness, was god's good news for all sorts and conditions of men .... "Have you anything to declare?" is a vital challenge to which every one of us is personally called to respond and is also a challenge that every meeting should consider of primary importance. it should lead us to define, with such clarity as we can reach, precisely what it is the Friends of this generation have to say that is not, as we believe, being said effectively by others. What, indeed, have we to declare to this generation that is of sufficient importance to justify our separate existences as part of the Christian fellowship? If we regard the Society of Friends merely as an ethical society we have no message for a world that is bursting with sin and sorrow and suffering. It is insufficient to merely offer palliatives to physical suffering, important and necessary as they are. there are those whose needs are on a different level and we should covet to have these others at least an equal concern. Have we "good news" for them?

Indeed, I believe, we do. Hence my starting this "Modest Proposal."

-- Brent