gathering in light

Robin, Martin and I will be co-leading a weekend retreat on convergent Friends we’re calling “Reclaiming the Power of Primitive Quakerism for the 21st Century” at the Ben Lomond Quaker Center this February 20-22. We’re getting pretty excited about the weekend. Basically, it’s going to be a time for everyone interested and/or already invested in the convergent Friends conversation to come together get to know one another better, worship together and wrestle over issues of renewal, the Friends tradition what it means to be Quakers in the 21st century. The retreat center we’re staying at is located in the beautiful Redwoods and has some very peaceful grounds. There will be childcare available and I know L, as well as Robin and Chris’ kids, will be there; so it’s definitely kid friendly and we’d love to add to that mix. Also, if you’re thinking there’s no way you can afford the trip email Quaker Center [mail @ quakercenter dot org] because I hear there is some help available.

Here’s a little descrition we wrote up on some of the things we’ll be doing:

The weekend will include time to share some of our spiritual journeys in small groups and in writing. We will listen deeply and lovingly to one another, as we speak courageously and gently about our own experiences of the Truth. We will explore what we can learn from each other’s stories, what it means to worship in Spirit and in Truth in the postmodern age, and how to share a lived faith as we serve all creation. We will walk in the redwoods, sing and laugh, have extended waiting worship, and eat together. We will experiment with some traditional Quaker practices and develop some tools to take home, to help us be the change we wish to see in our meetings, churches and the world. Expect inclusive and Christian language.

Along with all of that we’ll also be talking about convergent Friends in the past, I’ll be discussing a little bit about Everett Cattell and what we can learn from him for what we’re doing today, and Martin and Robin will be discussing the New Foundations Fellowship and Lewis Benson’s work for renewal. After working through some practical excersizes about faith and Quaker testimonies and delving into some historical examples we’ll turn to “dreaming” a little about where we would like to see convergent Friends go, where we believe God is taking, and we’ll share stories about where we see God already at work among Friends and in the world.

I hope some of you will be able to join us!

Download the registration flyer here and find more information on the convergent Friends website.

I came across this Alasdair MacIntyre quote not long ago and thought it was a fitting reflection for the much-discussed topic of church renewal. Part of MacIntyre’s point is to say that if a tradition is to overcome its own crisis of knowing, it will be through the revision of its narrative in light of its current cultural setting, together with its criteria for truth, by the hands of insiders to that tradition. This revision will never be final or complete, but always open-ended and ready for new changes. It seems to me that any account Convergent Friends can offer, or any other renewal movement within denominations (like Fresh Expressions, the Missional movement, the Emerging Church, etc) must always see itself as only “a best account so far.” MacIntyre writes:

When an epistemological crisis is resolved, it is by the construction of a new narrative, which enables the agent to understand both how he or she could intelligibly have held his or her original beliefs and how he or she could have been so drastically misled by them. The narrative is itself made into the subject of an enlarged narrative. The agent has come to understand how the criteria of truth and understanding must be reformulated. He had to become epistemologically self-conscious and at a certain point he may have come to acknowledge two conclusions: the first is that his new forms of understanding may themselves in turn come to be put in question at any time; the second is that, because in such crises the criteria of truth, intelligibility, and rationality may always themselves be put in question — as they are in Hamlet — we are never in a position to claim that now we possess the truth or now we are fully rational. The most we can claim is that this is the best account which anyone has been able to give so far, and that our beliefs about what the marks of “a best account so far” will themselves change in what are at present unpredictable ways. (MacIntyre 1980:56-57)

And elsewhere MacIntyre reflects on the importance that this “remix” of a tradition’s narrative within a new setting will have a fluid interplay with the past:

“For it is central to the conception of such a tradition that the past is never something merely to be discarded, but rather that the preset is intelligible only as a commentary upon and response to the past in which the past, if necessary and if possible, is corrected and transcended, yet corrected and transcended in a way that leaves the present open to being in turn corrected and transcended by some yet more adequate future point of view” (MacIntyre 1984:147).

Where have you personally witnessed these kinds of open-ended interactions taking place in today’s church?

Martin Kelley has written a post giving a little back history to what happened five years ago. Five years ago he started reading Rober Weber’s book The Younger Evangelicals, a book that confirmed much of his thinking about liberal Quakerism and helped him verbalize what needs to happen in order to change a church he says is “floundering on issues of tokenism and feel-good-ism.” The post is well worth the read, it’s insightful, and helps give context to how ‘convergent Friends’ finally came about. He also has a helpful, “where do we go now?” section. His post reminded me of two things in particular: our own major move five years ago, and the upcoming activities for convergent Friends in October. » Read the rest of this entry «

I’ve posted my June essay on Barclay press if you care to have a read (it’s nice and long!). Here’s and excerpt:

This past April Radiohead did another thing that sparked imaginations and challenged the preexisting structures of the music industry, yet again. They setup a website and invited people to remix one of their singles, “Nude.” Along with the invitation, they released the audio tracks containing the guitars, strings, drums, bass, and vocals through the iTunes music store. They invited people to participate in a contest to see who would make the best remix of their song, all the votes would be made by Radiohead fans (the winning remix received 38568 votes). By looking at remix culture, I think the church can learn something about how creativity and imagination interacts with existing ideas and structures and builds off those resources while also moving beyond them in new ways.

Click here to continue reading this essay.

This past spring I had the great opportunity to participate in leading a workshop on convergent friends in Providence with a dear friend, and some new friends we met there: David and Shawna. Afterwards Robin was contacted about writing an article for The Friends Journal on the workshop and she asked me to join in the process with her. This was my first co-authored article and I think it’s all the better for it. I learned a lot through the process of writing through working with Robin and am glad they put it online for you check out.

Here’s the article that is in this month’s Friends Journal: From the ‘Kitchen’ to the ‘Parlor’.

Kevin Roberts, creator and editor of Conservativefriend.org, has posted an article I wrote for the site titled “Convergent Friendship and Playing With the ‘Other’ Kids” it reflects upon my experience in Ohio as well as some thoughts on Quakers and ecumenicism. If you get a chance jump over and have a look.

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About a week ago I had an article come out in Young Quaker, the publication run by Young Friends General Meeting in Britain (See volue 53,number 6). This edition was the last one for Jez Smith, a friend of mine who currently lives in London, and who I worked with on the Britain Yearly Meeting Blog a Month ago. Anyways, it was a pleasure to write an article both for a different audience than what I would normally have and as a send-off to Jez who has taken a job at “The Friend” the only weekly Quaker publication in the world. Since many of you won’t have access to the article I thought I would summarize what I wrote there and open it up for discussion.

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Rachel Stacy, a young Quaker woman and soon to be graduate from Earlham School of Religion, with a double major in religion and chemistry, recently finished her final school project for a class in contemporary religious movements. She decided to do the final research project on convergent Friends and has produced a great introduction.
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