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 […]

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

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

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.  

by Mary Linda McKinney Quaker committee meetings are often: (Check all that apply) ❑ Frustrating ❑ Boring ❑ Rote ❑ Exhausting ❑ Pleasant ❑ Exasperating ❑ Community building ❑ Exciting ❑ Burdensome ❑ Hopeful ❑ Spiritually nurturing ❑ Tedious ❑ Emotionally intimate ❑ Centering ❑ Redundant ❑ Ungrounded If the boxes you checked lean toward