Composting Quakerism: A Podcast Of Quaker Ministers from the NW

Last fall a few of us (younger) Quaker ministers from the Northwest Yearly Meeting got together to start work on a podcast. After a little deliberation we decided to call it Composting Quakerism (Facebook page), bringing together two of my very favorite things. Compost is rife with theological allusion, and packed full of living organisms in various stages of decay. The idea behind the podcast is to assume that within Quakerism there is both the decay, as well as that rich soil ready for new life. Each podcast we ask basic questions, does the Quaker faith have relevance in our lives, what is it like being Quaker ministers in the 21st century, and what needs to change.

On initial launch our facebook page steadily ramped up to 170 people, not too bad for a podcast by Quakers!  There’s been little feedback, but I know people listen because we’ll randomly get a friendly comment here or there about something we talked about. The podcast is really a roundtable discussion where Jason, Darla and I share stories, do a little talk about history, and then try and find ways to apply this in our new context. Our audio equip leaves a little to be desired so you may have to crank up the volume, but hey, we are fashioning our project around compost after all.

Quakers and Women Ministers

This past Thursday the three of us, Jason Minnix, Darla Samuelson and myself, were joined up with a handful of Quaker women ministers to talk about ministry from their perspective. What we have is something I am really excited about. There are some really good discussions, some lively talk, some difficult stories, all assuming that the church can still have relevance, but needs to do a lot better at supporting its women.

You can download the MP3 episodes and listen at your leisure:

• Empty Seats at the Table Part 2: Where are the Women Side 1? // June 17, 2010
• Empty Seats at the Table Part 2: Where are the Women Side 2?

And since you can tell it is part two, here is a link to part one and the rest of the episodes we’ve done so far as well:

• Empty Seats at the Table Part 1: Where are the Women? // March 12, 2010
• Quakers and the Peace Testimony // January 8, 2010
• Making Space for Leadership // November 6, 2009
• Composting Quakerism Introduction // October 9, 2010

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