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Nurturing Ministry in Our Meetings - Excerpts

• Authored by:
• Callid Keefe-Perry

Excerpts from the keynote presentation to Intermountain Yearly Meeting; June 9, 2016; Ghost Ranch, Abiquiú, New Mexico

On Media (September 2016)

Strengthening Vocal Ministry for M4W (conversation notes)

Prison Profiteers: Who Makes Money from Mass Incarceration? - Review

• Authored by:
• Matt Lowen

Edited by Tara Herivel and Paul Wright

On Production (May 2014)

On Living with a Concern for Gospel Ministry (review)

• Authored by:
• Susan Loucks

Quakers assert that everyone can have direct access to the Divine and that anyone can step up to or away from ministry at any time.  Brian Drayton’s On Living with a Concern for Gospel Ministry (revised and updated) is relevant for anyone who wants to embody that power in their lives more fully. One clear intention of this book is to provide guidance to individuals with particular gifts that Quaker meetings might be rusty in recognizing and supporting.

On Place (May 2022)

Living in the Dashes: Ministry and Meetings

WF Podcast 33 – On the Laundry Ministry

Individual and Collective Anti-Racism

• Authored by:
• Amy Rowland

I was in my twenties when I came to Quaker faith and practice, and learned a new normal. It was the first time I saw social justice concerns centered by a faith community. Spiritual development was nurtured and encouraged for all ages and was treated as a personal responsibility, something one did for oneself and for the community. Although I had been raised in a religious home, this was my first exposure to faith as a way of life, not just individually, but communally. Quakers didn’t just “go to church together,” we shared the world and made sense of it as best we could together.

On Normality (July 2022)

Open the Channel

• Authored by:
• Anna Fritz

To celebrate the release of my third solo album, I played a big concert (of course). This was in 2016. I remember the nearly sold-out crowd gathering in the swanky Portland club and me, sitting in the back stairwell behind the stage, trying desperately not to barf, trying to ground back into my shaking-with-adrenaline body. Part of my difficulty lay in knowing that the people buying cocktails and chatting with their friends were there for a little Saturday night entertainment, while I was there to do battle – a spiritual warrior, fighting my way through self-doubt, fear, and a broken culture’s demands that I be small and obedient and perfect.

On Control (July 2019)

Soledad Worship Group

• Authored by:
• Sally Kingsland

In the five years I have lived in California, the deepest public worship experiences I have had, without a doubt, have been during my two visits to the Soledad Worship Group. This group is the “best-kept secret” in Pacific Yearly Meeting. There you find Friends with faith strong enough to humble you on the spot. I believe the worship in Soledad is especially deep both because many of its members are committed to personal transformation and because their circumstances require them to hand their lives over to God (however named), which is what it takes to truly hear the Word, to become Christ-like, and to experience covered meetings.

On Mixture (November 2018)

Elizabeth Gurney Fry: A Quaker Mess

• Authored by:
• Barbara Birch

Friends are doing a lot of reevaluation these days, reexamining our past and our venerable Quaker ancestors. In some cases, when moral inconsistencies emerge into the open, reexamination means that some iconic Friends are losing their luster. In other cases, stories of early Friends’ messy lives help us to see their humanity, which can lend greater depth and nuance to their spiritual writings. This happened for me when I read Chad Thralls’ May 2011 article in Friends Journal on the “embodied” life of Thomas Kelly. Learning how Kelly confronted his inner demons through surrender to Spirit increased my appreciation of his lyrical testimony.

On Conflict (January 2023)