A nice write-up about the Friends Gen­er­al Con­fer­ence Gath­er­ing in Friends Jour­nal by this year’s coor­di­na­tor, Liz Dykes. The Gath­er­ing has been the week-long “sum­mer camp for Lib­er­al Quak­ers” for over a cen­tu­ry but its trend lines have grown wor­ri­some. Even before COVID, atten­dance has been steadi­ly drop­ping. This year Liz reports that only 540 peo­ple came, which is a good num­ber con­sid­er­ing it was at a West Coast loca­tion, far from the mass of U.S. Quak­ers. But it’s a far cry from the high of the 2001 Gath­er­ing’s 1,920 atten­dees (includ­ing me and my then-fiancee, who had met at the pre­vi­ous Gathering). 

FGC has been watch­ing the trend lines, of course, and writ­ing up reports. COVID turned every­thing upside down for a few years. But final­ly there’s some big changes. Next year’s Gath­er­ing will be at Haver­ford Col­lege right out­side Philly, which puts it with­in a local train ride of a whole lot of Quak­ers. There was a time when prox­im­i­ty alone would have nixed the loca­tion, as it might have attract­ed too many Friends (and com­pete with Philadel­phia Year­ly Meet­ing’s annu­al ses­sions, which have become Gathering-like in recent decades), but times are a’chang­ing. I’m pleas­ant­ly sur­prised that a his­tor­i­cal­ly Quak­er school like Haver­ford is host, as I would have thought cost and size would be a prob­lem, but I’m glad for it. Future Gath­er­ings will be every oth­er year, which also seems like a good exper­i­ment: being a bit more rare, it can be a treat to go. 

I’m glad changes are final­ly being tried and wish FGC all the best. The Gath­er­ing has had an impor­tant role in Quak­er life — and not just for the meets-cute of future couples.

The Gath­er­ing That Is Becoming 

Over 540 Friends came to Mon­mouth, Ore., for the first all-ages, in-person Friends Gen­er­al Con­fer­ence Gath­er­ing in four…

Friends Journal 

From Steven Dale Davi­son:

Because lead­er­ship is a spir­i­tu­al prac­tice, its exer­cise needs spir­i­tu­al sup­port from the com­mu­ni­ty. To enable good lead­ers, we need reli­gious edu­ca­tion in the faith and prac­tice of lis­ten­ing and min­istry. We need to view proac­tive nur­ture of vocal min­istry as the pri­ma­ry path­way of bring­ing forth lead­ers in our meet­ings. Lead­er­ship needs a robust infra­struc­ture for the care of lead­ings and to sup­port dis­cern­ment and ministry.

Because we humans are the vehi­cle for the lead­er­ship of the Spir­it, and because most of us are not by nature very good at this spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, either as lead­ers or as fol­low­ers, we have to work at it. We have to learn it, and there­fore, we have to teach and mod­el it.

I’ve been feel­ing as if my own spir­i­tu­al prac­tice isn’t as cen­tered as I’d like. I want to make more time for spir­i­tu­al read­ing, includ­ing the Bible, dur­ing the week.

Learn­ing to Follow 

On being led by the Spirit.

Friends Journal