Philadelphia Yearly Meeting

of the Religious Society of Friends

Communications & Outreach

PA Historical Marker to Acknowledge Quaker Abolitionist

Written on:

Jack Schick, clerk of Richland Friends first discovered the legacy of Quaker Abolitionist Richard Moore while doing research for the meeting’s tricentennial commemoration in 2010.

While he knew the history of Quakertown (PA) Friends involvement in the Underground Railroad, it was only while searching the annals in the Richland Library Company, a research facility founded by Friends, that he discovered the full story of Richard Moore. [Read more…] about PA Historical Marker to Acknowledge Quaker Abolitionist

Haverford College Quaker & Special Collections re-opening!

Written on:

Quaker & Special Collections at Haverford College will reopen September 3, 2019 after the completion of a renovation project. This 18 month project transformed Haverford’s Lutnick library, preserving historic portions of the building while adding brand-new spaces. Quaker & Special Collections will reopen with a new reading room, which provides easy access to curatorial staff; a classroom with 30 seats and flexible furniture to allow for a wide variety of teaching activities; processing space; an exhibit gallery; a conservation lab; and climate-controlled secure stacks. These new spaces will allow for the growth and expansion of Quaker & Special Collections programming, including extensive engagement with classes across the curriculum, student-curated exhibits, and research fellowships. For any questions please email hc-special@haverford.edu

Help Our Community Stay Connected

Written on:

We have a new and more capable database, but we need your help in making sure your information is correct and up to date. All you need to do is to enter your correct address, email and phone information and you will help us build an awesome sense of community through your Quaker spirit and your participation in the Friends network.

Update your information at pym.org/yourinfo

Please help us get the word out by sharing the link above with your F/friends and with your Meeting. Thank You!

Updating Our Threads

Written on:

The Quaker Life Council has recently approved an updated set of Threads, which are ways of organizing the work and witness that all of the communities in PYM face on a regular basis. The new list is:

  • Peace & Social Justice
  • Ministry & Care
  • Religious Education
  • Outreach & Communications
  • Governance & Stewardship

[Read more…] about Updating Our Threads

Crossing the Threshold: Preparing to Welcome Families

Written on:

How do meeting communities prepare and engage in active invitation to families and children?

Three sets of needs. When a family walks through the door of a meeting, there are three sets of needs we should be prepared to support: the spiritual formation of their children, the spiritual journey of the adults as individual seekers drawn to Quakerism, and the family unit as they search for a spiritual community for their family to grow and contribute in. Welcoming a new family is the work of the whole meeting — youth religious education, worship and ministry, care of community, etc. Pastoral care for children begins with pastoral care for their parents or primary caregivers, and this care is best served at an intersection of multiple committees and ministries. Along with welcome and inclusion, child safety (which is really community safety) is another place for the meeting community to work together to address resources and practices. When my meeting wrote our child safety policy, the ad hoc committee included members of children’s religious education, worship and ministry, and the meeting clerk, who worked together to bring forward a policy for the whole meeting to approve as a body. There is a powerful message in the shared nature of that work.

Listen. When we welcome a family at the meetinghouse threshold, we need to be prepared to reach out and communicate about what they will find there. We also need to be ready to listen. What is a family looking for in a faith community? What do they want you to know about their children, their hopes and needs? After we listen, are we willing to create flexible structure and routines in programs for families to participate? How can we make space for Friends with a variety of gifts to participate in our spiritual community?

I had a humbling experience that lifted up the need to listen, as well as to share about Quakerism and our meeting: In a year when we had many new attenders, we decided to have a shared lunch to invite them more fully into the life and work of the meeting. We prepared a handout about committees, there was an agenda and program (and childcare and pizza for children!). The program opened with the simple request to go around the room and share what had brought each of us to our meeting? Where were we on our spiritual journey? I thought we would do introductions and then get to the “real work” of sharing about our committees and how newcomers could participate. Ninety minutes or so later, we had gotten around the circle of people present. We didn’t get to anything else we had planned. The real work of that time together was sharing, listening, and gathering as a spiritual community. The time for finding a place for people to serve would happen, but we needed to know each other better, first. Integrating families and other newcomers into the spiritual life of the meeting doesn’t need a committee. It’s just about placing primacy on the spiritual experience of worship, listening deeply to one another, and walking with one another in the travails and celebrations of life. People want to share their stories as they come to walk with us. Are we listening?

The unspoken messages of spaces. When my children were very young, I spent most of hospitality hovering over them on antique horsehair furniture where they balanced with glasses of juice and china plates of cookies. I rarely had an adult conversation of any depth, during a time when wonderful connection can happen — and when I needed it. It finally occurred to me to ask if we could add to the social room a small table and chairs for children. The result was transformative! People who are parents can get their children set up there, and then spend coffee hour talking to other adults. The other happy outcome? Children in fellowship with their peers, knowing one another in community outside of a program or worship. Spaces give unspoken, immediate clues to a new family about how prepared the meeting is to welcome them: is there a place to change a diaper? a booster seat or highchair? a small table and chairs in a fellowship space? Does the worship space have a basket of books, coloring, and other quiet things to support children be settled — and included — in worship? Does the greeter have information about child care and youth religious education programs, to hand to visitors along with announcements or information about the meeting? None of these things need to be fancy, but they send a powerful message of inclusion.

Friends may be interested in receiving:

  • “The Tote Bag” PYM e-newsletter for Religious Education and Family resources.
  • “Quaker Meeting and Me” from the Quaker Religious Education Collaborative. This little book in English and Spanish is wonderful to hand to a visitor or newcomer, or as a gift to young children in the meeting.

To learn more about these resources, or plan a conversation about outreach and support for families in your meeting, contact Melinda Wenner Bradley, the Youth Engagement Coordinator, at mwennerbradley@pym.org.

Report from a British Friend at the Quaker Centers Gathering in Sheffield, England

Written on:

photo: A view of Glenthorne Quaker Centre and Guest House and local Herdwick sheep on January 31, 2019

By Terry Winterton, Friend in Residence at Glenthorne Quaker Centre and Guest House

This year the annual British Quaker Centers gathering took place in January in Sheffield, a city on the eastern side of the Pennines (a range of hills that runs down the spine of England). A Yorkshire city, Sheffield is described by one of our hosts as “a big old northern industrial town”.

The world knows Sheffield for its stainless-steel cutlery manufacturing, while film aficionados know it as the location for the British film, The Full Monty.

Our gathering brings together some 33 delegates from 12 Quaker centers across the UK. They are trustees plus staff and members from Sheffield Meeting, and we begin by sitting together in a ‘circle for business dating.’ This serves as our icebreaker; and we each spend a minute telling a neighbor our name, Quaker center, and position. We move around the circle until we have spoken to everyone. There are a mix of Quaker and non-Quaker trustees and mostly non-Quaker staff. I wondered how Laura, my Glenthorne colleague, was feeling. This is her first time at a Quaker event!

Paul Grey, the CEO of Friends Hospitality Ltd, began the gathering by showing a short video from last year’s meeting at Glenthorne, and outlined the hopes for this year, centering on our theme of Building our Community and Network.

After a break for a hot buffet, we listened to Paul Parker, the Recording Clerk of Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM), speak about building the Quaker network. This was followed by a question and answer session plus closing remarks by Paul.

Wednesday morning, we based our session on the leaflet, Faith in our Future, led by Juliet Prager, Deputy Recording clerk of BYM. She helped us explore different themes: from Meeting for Worship is the bedrock of living as a Quaker, to Quakers are well known and understood! This proved far more interesting than I thought, and left some of the non-Quaker staff a bit bemused!

After the mid-morning break we went to breakout sessions on the themes of: Building your community using social media, Making the most of your message, Mental health awareness, and Bottling the Quaker Welcome. This focused our day on marketing our Quaker centers and Britain Yearly Meeting resources.

I learnt that in marketing we could not be shy, and to be effective we needed to put new content out several times a week. To make the most of our message, we must be clearer about what we are, and what we are for, preferably in a single short sentence!

After lunch we enjoyed a presentation on Trans awareness and gender diversity. We were encouraged to use inclusive language, not just personal pronouns, but to use names and ‘they’. For example: Fred gave the presentation and they were fascinating!

Later, some of us took a guided walk to explore the industrial heritage of Sheffield, while others took some down time. Late afternoon break-out sessions on: Strengthening liaison with Trustees and Central Staff, Engaging with Young People, Trading Companies, and Trans Awareness and Gender Identity concluded our day. Before retiring for the night, we shared a vegetarian meal together at the nearby Blue Moon café.

Thursday morning was devoted to Simon Francis, of Sheffield Mind. He talked about mental health awareness—sharing his own mental health journey—and asked us to reflect upon what ‘mental health’ meant to us.  We were reminded that mental health issues affect all of us, and we should treat others as we would like to be treated.

In the second session, a manager from the Sheffield Volunteer Centre spoke to us how the law impacts volunteers and staff differently. For instance, we can cover volunteer expenses, but if we pay an honorarium, the position is then governed by employment law. A similar situation would occur if a volunteer was given unpaid work with the promise of a paid position later.

We explored some of these issues more deeply in the question and answer session that followed—with insight provided by our speakers and a representative from the Sheffield Human Resources Advisory Service.

The retreat ended with a feedback session and the development of a list of ideas for next year’s conference at Edinburgh Meeting House in South East Scotland. Liz Hannah and all the organizers/staff at Sheffield made for a great Quaker trustees and staff event—one that exemplified collaboration towards a stronger community of Quaker work, friendship and witness within a climate of shared values, commercial realities and turbulent times.

Afterwards, I vowed to bring my learnings back to Glenthorne, and plan to organize something for young people next year. Such gatherings work to bridge the gulf of understanding that sometimes exist between Quaker Trustees and our non-Quaker employees.

About the Author

When he is not serving as the Friend in Residence at Glenthorne, Terry Winterton is a retired engineer, skilled hiker, and therapist. He runs a non-profit program that brings asylum seekers and refugees to the countryside for rest and engagement with nature at Glenthorne.

Terry submitted this article to PYM so that Friends in the US might learn what Quakers centers in England are focusing on as they gather staff and trustees to plan for the future.

Friends may connect with Friends at Britain Yearly Meeting when travelling to England. Friends Council on Education (FCE) will be offering a July 2020 Quaker Pilgrimage to England, with publicity and sign-up starting in the early fall of 2019.

About Glenthorne Quaker Centre and Guest House

Glenthorne is located in the Lake District of England and is a popular place for Friends, school groups, and hikers to stay as they travel in the region. Booking information is available at www.glenthorne.org

Families Sharing Stories in the Christmas Season

Written on:

“Parents are their children’s first and most important teachers,” was wisdom I learned from my mother, who was an advocate for children and families in all her work. It was some of the most important learning I took into the classroom with me as a teacher. It is of course true as well in religious education, though I would widen the role to include grandparents and other caregivers helping to raise a child. Stories often provide common ground across generations for sharing what’s in our hearts and teaching about our faith.

Amy Owsley from Third Haven Friends Meeting shares how families in the meeting came together to share the Christmas story with their children, and with one another. In a season often focused on worldly delights and diversions, how could the time before Christmas — a day that Friends did not traditionally celebrate as a holiday — also be about exploring the “meaning and relevance of the Christmas story in our lives today.”

Last September at a First Day School family open house, the PYM Youth Engagement Coordinator, Melinda Wenner Bradley, spoke to us about “Children, Families, and the Quaker Community.” One of the resources she shared was a story about the Advent season, adapted for Friends from the Godly Play story.  It was just one of a whole batch of rich resources, but the idea of this particular story caught the heart of several families.  We wondered if we could use this story to imbibe the busy, hectic Christmas season with more meaning?   And we could we do this individually with our families at home, but in a way that built community among our families in the Meeting?

Right after Thanksgiving, several families gathered together with reams of felt, little wooden peg figures, paint and sewing needles to make the materials needed to tell the story.  One our Meeting members, Susan Claggett, began the evening by sharing with the parents a Faith & Play story, and giving us some pointers on storytelling at home. Together we then made a handful of “Advent story kits” that we could take home.  The kits are humble little collections — not a bit of polish to them!   They are simple, made with heart, and carry our collective hope for creating connection and quiet in our lives during the holiday.

The Advent story can be told in four parts, so on each of the four Sundays of Advent, we share one more part of the story with our family at home.  Then we informally share our experiences the next Sunday among our group at Meeting.  The weeks unfold the Christmas story from the perspectives of the knowing prophets, the waiting and journeying of the holy family, the shepherds in the fields who are first to receive the news of the baby’s birth, the travels of the three Magi, and then the animals who witness the wonder of the birth of Jesus.  We are finding such magic in a quiet moment with our families each week, dwelling on the meaning and relevance of the Christmas story in our lives today.  Again, there isn’t any elegance or perfection here, as we are all fumbling a bit as we learn . . . but somehow this imperfection makes the experience sweeter and accessible, as our kids deepen their curiosity about the mystery of Christmas, and we parents deepen our kinship with others in the Meeting.

Learn to Engage Newcomers

Written on:

Does your meeting yearn to engage newcomers better?

Many sources have reported about people who visit Quaker meetings but do not stay.  Although some of these people may find that they are not drawn to the Quaker path, there are many stories of newcomers being ignored, neglected and even offended during their initial visits to a Quaker meeting. Seekers and Friends of Color, along with newcomers from other groups not well represented in our meetings, face unique challenges as newcomers. This may be in the form of microagressions or other obstacles to entry. Families with children also have unique needs that often make it hard to fully participate in the life of our meetings. How can our meetings better engage all who are seeking the Quaker way?

We believe meetings need people who:

  • understand the needs of newcomers
  • are focused on welcome
  • are knowledgeable about Quaker faith and practice and able to share in a way that is accessible to newcomers
  • are comfortable with and embracing of diversity in all its forms
  • are willing and able to accompany the newcomer, helping them to find connection in the meeting community and
  • support the entry of newcomers and help them to understand why and whether or not they should stay

Experience among Friends and in other faith communities suggests that being drawn into the life of the community promotes spiritual growth and increases the likelihood that newcomers will remain active within their faith.

We are looking for Friends Meetings to help us practice and improve our welcoming.

To help our Meetings draw newcomers more fully into the life of the Meeting, FGC has initiated The Welcoming Friend Project. This fall, we will create a collection of resources, geared toward helping Friends in monthly and yearly meetings adopt welcoming practices. We are inviting meetings to create a community of practice of meetings that will test out out these practices in the winter, introducing newcomers to the depth of the Quaker way while bringing them into the life of the meeting. In the spring and summer we’ll glean the learnings from these meetings, and share out our findings through workshops and eRetreats. In fall 2019, after the initial project phases are over, a volunteer leadership team will continue the work by maintaining and updating the resource collection and offering online trainings and Gathering workshops on an on-going basis.

One key focus of the Welcoming Friend project is to improve the welcome and engagement of newcomers to Quakerism and particularly of Friends and Seekers of Color. We recognize a need to increase awareness of and sensitivity to how U.S. and Canadian Friends of European descent currently respond to Friends and Seekers of Color and therefore the project will specifically emphasize awareness of microaggressions and other barriers to entry, the unique needs of newcomers from a variety of backgrounds, and behaviors and practices that invite the full participation and membership of Friends and Seekers of Color.

Would your meeting like to participate?

We are looking for 20-25 Friends from about a dozen meetings representing a broad range of Quaker experience in FGC meetings– urban, rural and in between; from a variety of regions of the U.S. and Canada; small, large and medium-sized.

To participate, your meeting should expect to:

  • Have strong support from your meeting. (Usually this will look like a minute of support from your Meeting for Worship for Business.)
  • Name two Friends who will participate as Welcoming Friends
  • Track newcomer attendance and participation before and during the learning period
  • Support the Welcoming Friends as they recommend new ideas and practices to try on during the experiment
    • Such ideas and practices might include:
      • Learning about needs of newcomers as a meeting
      • Learning about microagressions and other ways that Friends create barriers for newcomers
      • Organizing programs or opportunities of interest to newcomers and/or regular attenders such as potlucks, Quakerism 101, worship sharing, or other discussion times.
    • There is no fee to participate, although your meeting may be led to actions that may have costs associated: hiring child care to encourage family participation, buying books or videos for small group discussions, etc.

The Welcoming Friends should expect to:

  • Attend a video conference orientation in late November/early December
  • Participate in monthly video calls
  • Take the lead in introducing new practices in your local meeting
  • Report back quantitative and anecdotal results to the Welcoming Friend practice group
  • Some Welcoming Friends will continue to support the project as Working Group members beginning in summer 2019

Questions? Ideas?

We’d love to hear from you! Contact:

Holly Baldwin, Welcoming Friend Project Assistant

hollyb@fgcquaker.org

Statement on Recent Acts of Violence

Written on:

Quakers are holding in prayer and the light the families and loved ones of those who we lost at the Tree of Life Synagogue on October 27, 2018, at the Kroger grocery store in Kentucky on October 24, 2018, and in other acts of hate that will go untold.

We are called to name these as acts of antisemitism, racism, and bigotry. As a Faith centered in the belief that each person has God’s light within them, we are trying to address the culture of violence, isolation, and hate in our society. We are concerned that certain uses of internet and other media outlets foster a climate that embraces such acts of hate.

To heal from these, we are called to respond nonviolently, with love as our primary impulse.

Personally, between one shock to the system and the next, we may find this call to be tremendously difficult to follow. These days, we have little time even to mourn let alone consider how to move forward. We wonder what to tell our children.

The Civil Rights leader and author, Bayard Rustin—who was deeply influenced by Quaker and Gandhian nonviolence—wrote something that some may find helpful, in a letter to the children of Cleveland on December 3, 1969:

“…we cannot hope to achieve democracy and equality in such a way that would destroy the very kind of society which we hope to build. If we desire a society of peace, then we cannot achieve such a society through violence. If we desire a society without discrimination, then we must not discriminate against anyone in the process of building this society…If we can build such a society, then we would have achieved the ultimate goal of human freedom.”

In the work that we do, we sometimes feel like we are digging holes in the ocean. But we are reminded that we all share a relationship with God and to each other. As long as there are people like us, centering our actions in love, holding each other up, there will be resilience.

In the words of A.J. Muste, another organizer influenced by Quakerism, “There is no way to peace; peace is the way.” We add: There is no way to love, love is the way. There is no way to beloved community, beloved community is the way.

 

*This statement was read today, 10/30/18, by Melinda Wenner Bradley, PYM Youth Engagement Coordinator, at a press conference organized by CAIR-Philadelphia.

Green Street Meeting provides school supplies to children at EMIR Healing Center

Written on:

Green Street Meeting’s EMIR Ministry Support Group says a heartfelt “Thank you!” to everyone at Green Street, the meetings in Philadelphia Quarter, and beyond who supported our school supplies drive in summer 2018.

The drive benefited 103 children whose families had lost a loved one to homicide, and who received services and support from the EMIR Healing Center. The center was founded by our member Victoria Greene, and named in memory of her son Emir, who was murdered. The name also makes the statement “Every Murder Is Real.” No matter who the victim was, or how much or little attention the crime received, that person’s loved ones are mourning their loss for years afterwards.

Still going strong in Philadelphia’s Germantown neighborhood, after 19 years, the EMIR Healing Center continues to help families survive and eventually heal from the pain of losing a loved one to homicide.

Friends from Green Street Meeting formed the EMIR Ministry Support Group in early 2018. We use the Quaker Social Change Ministry model, developed by American Friends Service Committee (especially Green Street member Lucy Duncan). In this model, a group of Quakers partner with a local organization led by people most impacted by a particular issue. The Quaker group follows their lead in deciding what to work on. The model also makes time for spiritual sharing, connection, and reflection, leading to deeper relationship, followership, and grounding of action.

Victoria asked our group at Green Street to organize a drive to provide backpacks with school supplies to the children EMIR serves. When a parent is mourning a murdered family member, whether it be a brother, sister, parent, or child, it can be very hard for them to keep things together for the rest of the family. They may be depressed and overwhelmed, and not as able to track things like school start dates and supply lists. They may lose income or even their job.

Our ministry support group got organized in the spring, asked the Meeting to take us under their care, and then spent the summer campaigning and publicizing the drive. An online buying service was set up so supporters could buy things and have them shipped directly to EMIR. (See this PYM news story from May 2018.)

With a couple of weeks to go before our deadline, we had 51 backpacks, toward our goal of 85. And then we found out there were 103 kids served by EMIR! With God’s abundance, people came through. We had enough to serve every child. We raised about $1,750 in donations, which enabled us to fill gaps in what was bought online or contributed in person.

The week before school started, we gave away 103 backpacks with school supplies in them at the EMIR office. The little children in particular were overjoyed. There were even a few backpacks left over, in case other children have a need.

Victoria said it was a great success and thanked our support group for doing the project and everyone who contributed supplies, funds, or time.

To everyone who purchased supplies online, dropped off supplies directly at the Meetinghouse or at the EMIR office, or made a donation, THANK YOU!

– Chris Mohr, support group convenor

Photo: Victoria Greene, member of Green Street Meeting and founder of EMIR Healing Center, with a box used to collect school supplies. Learn more about EMIR at emirphilly.org.