PYM Priorities: A Framework for Action 2009-2012

Priority: Spiritual Growth and Renewal

1. Provide resources to help Monthly Meetings in uplifting the individual spiritual journey through participation in programs such as Spiritual Formation and Quakerism 101. Give attention to the needs of new members and attendees.
2. Provide resources to help Monthly Meetings in their collective spiritual journey through the programs of the Center for Deepening and Strengthening Our Meetings and Friends' inter-visitation.
3. Identify resources, and create opportunities that will support Friends in exploring and addressing the theological diversity in our community.
4. Develop curricula for all ages which illustrate how all our testimonies are interrelated and grounded in the Spirit.
5. Collaborate with younger Friends (wide definition - not just high school) to identify programs and materials that encourage and support a lifelong commitment to be seekers of Truth in community.
6. Develop innovative Religious Education programs for children, youth and adults to help Friends articulate our faith and practice. Provide programs and materials which encourage sharing our individual and collective spiritual journeys and nurtures the practice of waiting worship.

Priority: Caring for Our Community

1. Begin the process of updating Faith and Practice.
2. Renew our commitment to sound Quaker practice and the teaching of it.
3. Encourage younger Friends' participation in their Monthly, Quarterly, and Yearly Meetings with the intent to further develop the multigenerational nature of our community.
4. Consider whether it is rightly ordered to exclude non-PYM members from serving on PYM committees, particularly those in transitional periods of their lives such as Young Adult Friends.
5. Recommend practices designed to orient new members and attendees to the work of the Yearly Meeting. Give attention to practical support for younger Friends and families to attend PYM events.
6. Support pastoral care across all age groups.
7. Update a directory of PYM Friends with gifts of teaching and ministry who can be called upon to travel to meetings as needed. Also consider updating a skills bank directory of Friends with abilities and interests who would be available to be called on by meetings and members.
8. Support our ongoing work in Friends education and engage meetings and quarters in a new dialogue about right relationships between PYM and Friends related organizations: Friends schools, Friends camps, and Friends elder care providers.
9. Nurture Quaker leadership and a culture of active participation in the life of our meetings at all levels.

Priority: Witnessing Our Faith

1. Partner with other Friends organizations, including AFSC and FCNL, whose specific purposes focus on public witness and service.
2. Develop interfaith and ecumenical witness to reduce violence in our local communities.
3. Reduce our carbon and ecological footprints as necessary steps toward seeking to live in right relationship with the community of life. Give attention to how individuals, families, our monthly and quarterly meetings and our Yearly Meeting are led to reduce our footprint in our buildings, travel, and purchases. Give attention to advancing national legislation and international negotiations to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
4. Provide programs which work for social justice in addressing concerns of, and making personal connections with, marginalized members of our general society, with particular concern for homeless children.
5. Support efforts to recognize and address issues of race, gender, age, and class in the general society, including the Religious Society of Friends.
6. Continue the work of re-visioning the Peace Testimony.

Priority: Making Ourselves Known

1. Design and implement a comprehensive communication plan for PYM.
2. Support Monthly and Quarterly meetings who embark on in-reach/outreach programs such as Quaker Quest.
3. Provide outreach programs to college campuses and Friends retirement communities.
4. Consider practical steps to make our meeting buildings more visible in our local communities.
5. Promote active relationships of monthly and quarterly meetings with their local communities. Give attention to supporting monthly and quarterly meeting participation in community events where they may make themselves known to a wider community.
6. Maintain good stewardship practices for our buildings and historical resources, and lifting them up as both ministry and outreach.