Philadelphia Yearly Meeting has multiple October events that will provide ways to engage within our community before Fall Continuing Sessions. Three opportunities include fellowship of the thread gathering, a family-centered peace-building event, or the collective discernment over climate during a virtual threshing session. Each of these events offers a unique opportunity to engage with the PYM community and prepare ourselves spiritually for the work ahead. Whether you are seeking fellowship, family engagement, or discernment on critical issues, these events will help ground us as we come together as a faith community:
Adult Religious Education
Friends Committee on National Legislation | Lobbying for the World We Seek
The Monthly Meeting of Friends of Philadelphia (Arch Street Friends) welcomes fellow PYM F/friends to participate in its virtual Adult Education Series on Zoom.
About the Lecture & Speaker
The Friends Committee on National Legislation has a long history of social advocacy on Capitol Hill, but how are Friends called to influence our government today?
Just over 80 years ago, Friends started FCNL and became the first registered religious lobbying organization in the country. Today, with a team of expert lobbyists and coalition partners, grassroots networks from across the country, and the input of hundreds of Quaker communities at the start of every new congress, FCNL faithfully works to create the World We Seek. Grounded in a vision to bring about a more peaceful, equitable, and sustainable world, that legacy continues to guide our prophetic work within the federal government.
Join us to hear from Micah MacColl Nicholson, Program Associate for Quaker Engagement on the past and present of FCNL’s advocacy.
Micah MacColl Nicolson is the Program Associate for Quaker Engagement at the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL). An attender of Friends Meeting of Washington and alumna of Earlham College, she joined FCNL in 2023 as part of the Young Adult Program Assistant fellowship through a calling to help welcome more F/friends into the work being done in Washington, DC. She works to advocate for Quaker voices within our nation’s legislative processes and strengthen relationship with established and new Quaker communities across the country.
All are welcome! No prior registration required. Please note that the Zoom link for the event will go live on archstreetfriends.org/calendar the day of the event.
About MMFP’s Adult Education Series
The Adult Education Committee at Monthly Meeting of Friends of Philadelphia (Arch Street Friends) hosts a monthly series of Zoom talks on Quaker topics of particular relevance to meeting members and attenders. For a full slate of upcoming lectures, visit archstreetfriends.org/calendar.
Walking in the World as a Friend: Community Practice Group
Adult Religious Education Online on 3rd Mondays, 7:15 – 9:00pm Eastern US time, Sept 16, Oct 21, and Nov 18, 2024. To register go to Quaker Religious Education Collaborative (QREC) or Friends Peace Teams (FPT).
Walking in the World as a Friend: Community Practice Group
Adult Religious Education Online on 3rd Mondays, 7:15 – 9:00pm Eastern US time, Sept 16, Oct 21, and Nov 18, 2024. To register go to Quaker Religious Education Collaborative (QREC) or Friends Peace Teams (FPT).
Walking in the World as a Friend: Community Practice Group
Adult Religious Education Online on 3rd Mondays, 7:15 – 9:00pm Eastern US time, Sept 16, Oct 21, and Nov 18, 2024. To register go to Quaker Religious Education Collaborative (QREC) or Friends Peace Teams (FPT).
Inaara Shiraz | Inclusion & Belonging in Quakerism
The Monthly Meeting of Friends of Philadelphia (Arch Street Friends) welcomes fellow PYM F/friends to participate in its virtual Adult Education Series on Zoom.
About the Lecture & Speaker
What are the ways that Quaker meetings can think expansively about inclusivity? How might Friends welcome spiritual seekers and support members of their own communities with a broad spectrum of needs? During this program facilitated by Inaara Shiraz, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s Inclusion and Belonging Coordinator, we will explore ways in which Friends can center ourselves in the practice of inclusivity and belonging. We will explore the topics of community building and engaging with each other through a framework of love.
Inaara Shiraz (she/her) serves as the Inclusion and Belonging Coordinator as part of the Program and Religious Life (PRL) Team in the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. In her role, Inaara supports diversity, inclusion, and belonging efforts within the yearly meeting and supports the community of young adult Friends. She is an attender at Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting.
All are welcome! No prior registration required. Please note that the Zoom link for the event will go live on archstreetfriends.org/calendar the day of the event.
About MMFP’s Adult Education Series
The Adult Education Committee at Monthly Meeting of Friends of Philadelphia (Arch Street Friends) hosts a monthly series of Zoom talks on Quaker topics of particular relevance to meeting members and attenders. For a full slate of upcoming lectures, visit archstreetfriends.org/calendar.
John Woolman: An Early Quaker Abolitionist
Charles Bruder, Director of the Woolman Memorial, will share stories from the life of John Woolman, who was an 18th century Quaker, a man of peace and disciple of Christ. He identified slavery as the major issue of his day and provided an example of non-participation: he refused to write wills, bills of sale, or any other document that perpetuated slavery.
Woolman boycotted all products associated with slave labor including tobacco, silver, rum, sugar, and dye. A resident of Mt. Holly, he travelled to speak with Friends, including early members of Haddonfield Friends Meeting, and encouraged them to manumit all Africans they held in bondage.
Meeting for Worship begins at 10 AM, followed by the program about 11:15 AM,
Andrew Anderson | Faith and Practice
The Monthly Meeting of Friends of Philadelphia (Arch Street Friends) welcomes fellow PYM F/friends to participate in its virtual Adult Education Series on Zoom.
About the Lecture & Speaker
The Religious Society of Friends publication Faith and Practice captures the religious experience of its community through personal experiences and extracted testimonies (its “faith”), as well as the corporal methods of being a religious organization (its “practice”). How do Quakers use this book, which is periodically updated by Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, for guidance? And in what way are the faiths and customs of a meeting more expansive than what is written? Andrew Anderson, a member of our meeting’s Worship and Ministry Committee, will speak about Faith and Practice‘s history and current use.
Andrew Anderson is a member of the Monthly Meeting of Friends of Philadelphia (Arch Street Friends) and the executive director of the Friends Rehabilitation Program, a Quaker-related Philadelphia non-profit whose mission is to provide housing and social services for low and moderate income households.
All are welcome! No prior registration required. Please note that the Zoom link for the event will go live on archstreetfriends.org/calendar the day of the event.
About MMFP’s Adult Education Series
The Adult Education Committee at Monthly Meeting of Friends of Philadelphia (Arch Street Friends) hosts a monthly series of Zoom talks on Quaker topics of particular relevance to meeting members and attenders. For a full slate of upcoming lectures, visit archstreetfriends.org/calendar.
Ways to Enter the Season of Lent as Friends
The enthusiastic response to the adult religious education Advent program in December 2020, and feedback heard in conversations around the Yearly Meeting about a yearning for opportunities for Bible study, are on the minds of program staff. We’re sharing three opportunities to join online programs offered by progressive Christian organizations and faith leaders during the season of Lent. There is a variety both in how they are structured (asynchronous, sessions online, self-guided) and also in the grounding for content. One explores anti-racism as a spiritual practice, another uses the art of Vincent van Gogh and his studies of light, and the third is a theological exploration of “Jesus Deconstructed.”
[Read more…] about Ways to Enter the Season of Lent as Friends
