By Mary Linda McKinney Are you interested in participating in Faithful Meetings but don’t think your meeting could commit? Do you think you could find 5 or 6 other folks in your meeting who also might be interested? Faithful Meetings is expanding to include you! Over the past year of promoting Faithful Meetings among Friends, …
By Mary Linda McKinney I was about half-way into the development of Faithful Meetings when I had the realization that as communities begin building a foundation of trust and experiencing the environment that we’ve co-created as safe, some buried conflicts will likely come to the surface. I was intentionally creating a program which may hold …
By Mary Linda McKinney The Faithful Meetings program has three primary components: An online classroom, learning sessions for the whole community, and small spiritual formation groups. Two months ago, I introduced the spiritual formation part of the program. Last month, I wrote about the online classroom. Today, I’m focusing on community learning sessions. Learning sessions …
December 2022 – Faithful Meetings Snapshot: Community Learning Sessions Read More »
By Mary Linda McKinney The Faithful Meetings program has three primary components: An online classroom, learning sessions for the whole community, and small spiritual formation groups. Last month I introduced the spiritual formation part of the program. Next month, I’ll share about the whole community learning sessions. Today, I’m focusing on the online classroom. Although …
November 2022 – Faithful Meetings Snapshot: The Online Classroom Read More »
By Mary Linda McKinney Our Faithful Meetings program has three primary components: An online classroom, learning sessions for the whole community, and small spiritual formation groups. Today, I’ll introduce you to Faithful Meetings spiritual formation and we’ll look at the other two parts of the program in future Snapshots. I love doing spiritual formation in …
October 2022 – Faithful Meetings Snapshot: Spiritual Formation Read More »
By Christopher Sammond In 2004, when I came to New York Yearly Meeting to serve as General Secretary, some Friends shared with me that yearly meeting members whose passion was for witness were saying “Well, it looks like Ministry won,” with my hire. My passion for spiritual deepening was well known, and in a committee …
By Mary Linda McKinney The Quaker Divide Part I here and Part II here. Based on a few comments about my previous post, I know that some of you think that spiritual diversity isn’t a problem for your community. You think that everyone in your meeting shares a similar theological understanding. You’re all Christian or …
By Mary Linda McKinney This is the second installment in a three-part series by Mary Linda. The first part can be read here. Some Friends believe that the Religious Society of Friends is and should be explicitly Christian. Other Friends feel that we should tip our hats to the Christian roots of the RSoF but …
by Mary Linda McKinney Over the last couple of years, I have spoken with dozens and dozens of Friends and have heard the same frustration, the same hurt over and over: I can’t bring my authentic spirituality into my Quaker community. Friends have told me, “I’m a Christian and my meeting does not welcome Christian …
by Mary Linda McKinney Woven throughout Faithful Meetings will be the themes of humility, submission, and That of God within. For me, they are important elements of what it means to be Quaker. In order to really explore these topics, I think it is important to consider a significant barrier to them: Worldly power. …
April 2022: Barrier to Faithfulness: Worldly Power Read More »