New Monastics and Convergent Friends Retreat Outline
Martin Kelley and I will be leading a weekend retreat at Pendle Hill in just a couple weeks (May 14-16) and I’m starting to get really excited about it! Martin and I have been
Convergent Friends
A New “Convergent” Mapping Project hits the Web
Martin Kelley isn’t the only one really excited about the new Quakermaps.com project from Micah Bales and Jon Watts. While there are other quaker maps out there this is by far the coolest
New Convergent Friends Article (Quaker Studies)
Next time you find your way to a university library you should pick up the latest copy of Quaker Studies journal (Volume 14, Issue 2 March 2010). My first journal article, “Convergent Friends: The Emergence
One Take On the Importance of the Quaker Practice of “Open Worship”
Adrian Halverstadt, a Quaker pastor, asks this question on the QuakerQuaker forum boards: I have been thinking a lot about open worship these days. Many of the larger evangelical Friends churches no longer practice open
A Thought for Quakers on Change
I am preparing my discussion for our Sunday morning meeting for worship and am thinking a lot about what Kester Brewin calls “wombs of the divine,” and creating the necessary space for something new to
We All Know That Reality has a Well-Known “Conservative” Bias
One of the things my favorite (fake) newscaster Stephan Colbert says on a regular bias is that “Major media has a well-known liberal bias.” And this is definitely something many people believe. This perspective has
Freedom Friends Church Faith and Practice
Freedom Friends Church in Salem Oregon is currently an independent meeting that has recently written their own Faith and Practice. A number of Friends, Monthly Meetings and Yearly Meetings, have been interested in reading about
Plan Ahead – Convergent Friends and New Monastics at Pendle Hill
Martin Kelley and I will be facilitating a weekend workshop at Pendle Hill this coming May (2010) that explores how tight-knit faith communities, such as convergent Friends, carry on and expand their witness via the
Meeting New Challenges Through Repetition
In every generation the church faces new, as well as old, challenges. For many years, Christendom allowed a basic stability within the culture for the church to remain in tact. It was a false sense
Mind the Fire, Fan the Flame: A Message of Hope for Quakers
I’m currently digging through my research on Freedom Friends Church and found a blog post Liz Opp wrote awhile back that got my attention. In the post Liz talks about hearing Peggy (FFC’s
Blogging as Ministry in A Virtual World
Quaker blogger Robin Mohr has written a really thoughtful post, if you are interested in ministry in a web 2.0 culture this is a must read essay. Here are the three key points she
Practicing Re-Collection (or Centering) Prayer
One thing that came out of our weekend retreat was a number of practices I want to work on and integrate into my life. This mostly came from the morning workshop on contextualizing the “testimony