YAF Retreat on Building Sustainable Community
By Mike GorenOver 100 young adult Friends from across the United States and Canada gathered the weekend of February 16-18 at the Burlington Conference Center in Burlington, NJ. The weekend conference was organized by youth workers from Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Friends General Conference and Pendle Hill and was funded by a grant from Friends Institute of PYM.
This diverse group of young adult Friends represented 20 different Yearly Meetings, including Friends from Friends General Conference, Friends United Meeting, and Evangelical Friends International.
Throughout the weekend, we focused on the queries: “Who are we?” “What are we called to today?” “Do we have a collective identity as young adult Friends or a collective witness?” A week before everyone arrived, we sent out a Friends Journal article written by Christina Repoley, who attended the conference titled “The Prophetic Journey” and challenged people to begin reflecting on the four queries. On Friday evening, everybody received their own copy of the October 2006 issue of Friends Journal themed “What are Friends called to today?” which became a valuable and much read resource throughout the weekend.
We opened up the conference by playing games and beginning to look at the diversity we had within the group. For those who wished to get up early on Saturday morning, a Bible Study/discussion group met at 7:30am. Niyonu Spann, Dean of Pendle Hill, joined us on Saturday morning to facilitate community building. She encouraged us to look within to find the essential elements of Quakerism that sustain us, and to ask ourselves how we can grow into living those elements more fully. This discussion allowed space for Friends to voice concerns about feeling disconnected from Quakerism, alone in their beliefs, or lacking a common definition of what being Quaker meant. There was such a diversity of opinions, beliefs, and life experiences that we wrestled with how we could come to unity on any sort of collective identity. Niyonu left us to reflect on whether we believed that being in unity meant there could be no difference or disagreement.
Saturday afternoon found us in five different “interest/discussion groups,” all led by young adult Friends attending the conference. The overarching theme for the interest groups was “Quaker Witness: How we are living as Quakers in the world today.” These groups discussed political activism, community service, writing and blogging as ministry, Quaker diversity, and discerning ones spiritual call.
We began meeting for worship on Saturday evening with the introduction of more queries:
- Who are we?
- How do we be real about our brokenness and make space for healing?
- What do we need to do to become who we want to be?
- What holds us back from doing this?
This led us into an amazing and powerful two hour long meeting for worship. To better share the power of this meeting for worship, we are quoting a young adult Friend.
One thing that I can say about this weekend was that I attended one of the most powerful Meetings for Worship I could have ever imagined. It lasted almost two hours, and the messages were honest, vulnerable, and earth-stopping in how covered the Meeting felt. It was a powerful group of people that I spent the last couple of days with. Goosebumps rolled over my body continuously, and the presence of Spirit was palpable in our very breathing ...
One of the things that I will continue to sit with was how much pain people were able to voice about the divisions within Quakerism, the knowledge that Quakerism is something that they feel is worth fighting for, and that they are willing to step into that struggle. Person after person stood, in various forums, and gave voice to their need for Quakerism to grow, to change, to become the powerful vehicle we all know it could be. They gave voice to the necessary shifting and growth within Quakerism ... But for once, it was not a hopeless process, but one filled with Spirit, commitment and hope. We are a broken people, a broken society, and yet, by naming that brokenness and standing in discomfort, in speaking our t(T)ruths, we are walking closer and closer to God. In taking our shadows by the hand, and loving them for their existence, we are, in fact, healing the wounds that have been bleeding for so long.
In closing, on Sunday we shared what we would take away from this conference. Many Friends felt like there was a lot to be done, but they were reenergized by the faith and love that they felt during the weekend, and would return to their own communities with hope for the future.
We were covered in the Holy Spirit, bonded together in Love, a gathered people under the headship of the Spirit of Christ. We were broken, tender, and open to the ministry of the Lord. And the underlying message that the Inward Teacher had for us was simple yet profound: We start with love. Often Friends, reaching across the divides of differences in theology, culture and ways of viewing the world, wonder what it is that makes us all Friends. “Why are we called to be together?”, we ask. This weekend, I felt that we were given the answer: We are called together because of our love for one another”¦.If we stay low to the ground, if we stay vulnerable and tender to the ministry of the Holy Spirit, there is no limit to how God can act through us. The ministry of young Friends, the ministry of these valiant Quaker men and women, will shake the countryside for miles around.
In peaceful quaking,
Lauren and Emily
Lauren Baumann
Young Adult Friends Coordinator
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)
1515 Cherry Street
Philadelphia, PA 19102
215-241-7075
laurenb@pym.org
Emily Stewart
Youth Ministries Coordinator
Friends General Conference
1216 Arch St 2B
Philadelphia, PA 19107
215-561-1700
emilys@fgcquaker.org
