Tag Archives ⇒ church

What is your Quaker meeting’s story?

August 16, 2024
· Martin Kelley

I had a great video inter­view with Mike Huber on gam­ing and fun and com­mu­ni­ty (I even got to bust out nine­teenth cen­tu­ry Books of Dis­ci­pline to high­light past Quak­ers’ dis­trust of “gam­ing and diver­sions”). He has an arti­cle in the cur­rent FJ on Dun­geons & Drag­ons and how his long­time play of it has shaped how he sees his Quak­er communities.

One take­away of our talk was the idea of a Quak­er com­mu­ni­ty as a kind of sto­ry­telling place. Do we have sto­ries of who we are? Our they are sto­ries or sto­ries inher­it­ed from pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions? Do we rec­og­nize our sto­ry arcs — the shifts, some­times obvi­ous and some­times grad­ual — that change our character.

Mike point­ed out that pas­tored meet­ings have rather obvi­ous moments to stop and reflect on who we are and what we’re becom­ing, as a change in pas­tors requires an assess­ment as a new call for a pas­tor starts. In unpro­grammed meet­ings, cer­tain­ly gen­er­a­tional changes cre­ates sto­ry arcs, though per­haps not as consciously.

What is you meet­ing or church’s story?

Dungeons & Dragons & Quakers: Mike Huber
Dun­geons & Drag­ons & Quak­ers: Mike Huber 

A Quak­er author chat. Michael Huber’s “Ses­sion Zero: Dun­geons & Drag­ons in the Quak­er Com­mu­ni­ty” appears in the…

YouTube YouTube 

Read the video’s show notes here.

UK Quakers will not profit from the occupation of Palestine

November 20, 2018
· Martin Kelley

British Friends become first church in UK to pull invest­ments in com­pa­nies prof­it­ing from the occu­pa­tion of Pales­tine. From record­ing clerk Paul Parker:

As Quak­ers, we seek to live out our faith through every­day actions, includ­ing the choic­es we make about where to put our mon­ey. We believe strong­ly in the pow­er of legit­i­mate, non­vi­o­lent, demo­c­ra­t­ic tools such as moral­ly respon­si­ble invest­ment to realise pos­i­tive change in the world. We want to make sure our mon­ey and ener­gies are instead put into places which sup­port our com­mit­ments to peace, equal­i­ty and justice. 

As you’d might expect, there’s been back­lash. The Board of Deputies of British Jews has con­demned Britain Year­ly Meet­ing’s deci­sion as a “biased and petu­lant act.”.


Quakers will not profit from the occupation of Palestine

Quak­ers will not prof­it from the occu­pa­tion of Palestine 

Quak­ers in Britain has today become the first church in the UK to announce it will not invest…

Quakers Quakers 

Bathrooms as hospitality ministry

July 31, 2018
· Martin Kelley

Macken­zie Mor­gan reminds us that some kinds of hos­pi­tal­i­ty begin in our church bathrooms:

Now imag­ine a par­ent with a scream­ing baby sud­den­ly real­iz­ing they for­got the dia­per bag at home. Imag­ine it’s their first time at your meet­ing. Many peo­ple are self-conscious about their baby cry­ing, espe­cial­ly with unpro­grammed worship.

Bath­rooms as hos­pi­tal­i­ty ministry

Spirit-Led Evangelism

June 1, 2018
· Martin Kelley

Spirit-Led Evan­ge­lism

Adria Gulizia guest post­ing on Johan Mau­r­er’s blog: It is hard to talk about God, Jesus and the spir­i­tu­al life in this moment in Amer­i­can his­to­ry. Many of our non-Christian neigh­bors find the lit­tle they know about Jesus to be attrac­tive or intrigu­ing, but they know enough about the fail­ings of the church to have very neg­a­tive opin­ions about actu­al Chris­tians. If we do have non-Christian friends, it may be despite our Chris­t­ian faith rather than because of it — we may be seen as the excep­tion that proves the rule.

https://​blog​.canyoube​lieve​.me/​2​0​1​8​/​0​5​/​a​d​r​i​a​-​g​u​l​i​z​i​a​-​s​p​i​r​i​t​-​l​e​d​-​e​v​a​n​g​e​l​i​s​m​.​h​tml

Spirit-Led Evangelism

June 1, 2018
· Martin Kelley

Spirit-Led Evan­ge­lism

Adria Gulizia guest post­ing on Johan Mau­r­er’s blog: It is hard to talk about God, Jesus and the spir­i­tu­al life in this moment in Amer­i­can his­to­ry. Many of our non-Christian neigh­bors find the lit­tle they know about Jesus to be attrac­tive or intrigu­ing, but they know enough about the fail­ings of the church to have very neg­a­tive opin­ions about actu­al Chris­tians. If we do have non-Christian friends, it may be despite our Chris­t­ian faith rather than because of it — we may be seen as the excep­tion that proves the rule.

https://​blog​.canyoube​lieve​.me/​2​0​1​8​/​0​5​/​a​d​r​i​a​-​g​u​l​i​z​i​a​-​s​p​i​r​i​t​-​l​e​d​-​e​v​a​n​g​e​l​i​s​m​.​h​tml

Spirit-Led Evangelism

June 1, 2018
· Martin Kelley

Spirit-Led Evan­ge­lism

Adria Gulizia guest post­ing on Johan Mau­r­er’s blog: It is hard to talk about God, Jesus and the spir­i­tu­al life in this moment in Amer­i­can his­to­ry. Many of our non-Christian neigh­bors find the lit­tle they know about Jesus to be attrac­tive or intrigu­ing, but they know enough about the fail­ings of the church to have very neg­a­tive opin­ions about actu­al Chris­tians. If we do have non-Christian friends, it may be despite our Chris­t­ian faith rather than because of it — we may be seen as the excep­tion that proves the rule.

https://​blog​.canyoube​lieve​.me/​2​0​1​8​/​0​5​/​a​d​r​i​a​-​g​u​l​i​z​i​a​-​s​p​i​r​i​t​-​l​e​d​-​e​v​a​n​g​e​l​i​s​m​.​h​tml

Spirit-Led Evangelism

June 1, 2018
· Martin Kelley

Spirit-Led Evan­ge­lism

Adria Gulizia guest post­ing on Johan Mau­r­er’s blog: It is hard to talk about God, Jesus and the spir­i­tu­al life in this moment in Amer­i­can his­to­ry. Many of our non-Christian neigh­bors find the lit­tle they know about Jesus to be attrac­tive or intrigu­ing, but they know enough about the fail­ings of the church to have very neg­a­tive opin­ions about actu­al Chris­tians. If we do have non-Christian friends, it may be despite our Chris­t­ian faith rather than because of it — we may be seen as the excep­tion that proves the rule.

https://​blog​.canyoube​lieve​.me/​2​0​1​8​/​0​5​/​a​d​r​i​a​-​g​u​l​i​z​i​a​-​s​p​i​r​i​t​-​l​e​d​-​e​v​a​n​g​e​l​i​s​m​.​h​tml

Spirit-Led Evangelism

June 1, 2018
· Martin Kelley

Spirit-Led Evan­ge­lism

Adria Gulizia guest post­ing on Johan Mau­r­er’s blog: It is hard to talk about God, Jesus and the spir­i­tu­al life in this moment in Amer­i­can his­to­ry. Many of our non-Christian neigh­bors find the lit­tle they know about Jesus to be attrac­tive or intrigu­ing, but they know enough about the fail­ings of the church to have very neg­a­tive opin­ions about actu­al Chris­tians. If we do have non-Christian friends, it may be despite our Chris­t­ian faith rather than because of it — we may be seen as the excep­tion that proves the rule.

https://​blog​.canyoube​lieve​.me/​2​0​1​8​/​0​5​/​a​d​r​i​a​-​g​u​l​i​z​i​a​-​s​p​i​r​i​t​-​l​e​d​-​e​v​a​n​g​e​l​i​s​m​.​h​tml