Friends from every meeting, region, and generation across Philadelphia Yearly Meeting carry impactful legacies forward each day. Committees and meetings record minutes, councils carry forward the business of the yearly meeting, organizations in our region act in ministry, and faith moves through individual Friends. Each of these moments creates a story worth sharing. [Read more…] about Every Ministry. Every Meeting. Every Friend. Has a Story.
PYM community
January 2025 | Joint Council Update
At January’s council meeting, council members reflected on the “Joint Council Experiment”, the new format in which all three councils meet together with a single agenda. The councils have now met three times in this new format and Friends have begun to elucidate, in various ways, how the new format works & how they feel about it.
Selden Smith’s Call to Serve as Rising Clerk
Selden Smith has been a part of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting community for his whole life, bringing care, humor, and dedication to his work among Friends. Selden shared his reflections on his journey with Quakerism, his unexpected call to serve as Rising Clerk, and his hopes for the future of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. He highlights the importance of recognizing the gifts and talents within our community—both in ourselves and in others—and how these contributions sustain and strengthen the work we share as Friends.
[Read more…] about Selden Smith’s Call to Serve as Rising Clerk
December 2024 | Joint Council Update
The three councils that guide Philadelphia Yearly Meeting—Quaker Life Council, Administrative Council, and Nominating Council—recently gathered for their second meeting in a newly adopted joint format. In this structure, the councils come together as one Joint Council to worship, discern, and conduct business collaboratively. in an article written about this experiment this summer, this practice ensures that the Joint Council can promptly share its minutes with the PYM community after the meeting.



