LEYM ADVICES AND QUERIES: OUTREACH
Be patterns, be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations, wherever you come; that your carriage and life may preach among all sorts of people and to them. George Fox, Journal, p. 263.
How welcoming is our Meeting to newcomers? In what ways do we orient and include new attenders? Is our place of worship physically accessible to all? What resources about Quakerism and about the Meeting do we share?
Do we reach out to the wider circle of Friends? Do we support and participate in Friends General Conference and Friends World Committee for Consultation, whose missions are to nurture the entire Religious Society of Friends?
Do we work with other religious and social groups in the pursuit of common goals? While remaining faithful to Quaker insights, do we enter openly into the life and witness of other communities of faith, creating together the bonds of friendship?
Are we open to becoming a Meeting of people from different ethnicities, cultures, and backgrounds who value and appreciate one another? Do we give sufficient time and effort to a mutual sharing with others about the experience and understanding of Quaker worship, service, and witness? How do we discern the balance between not proselytizing and not hiding our Light under a bushel?
LEYM’s Advices & Queries, for Use by Individual Friends, Meetings, and Worship Groups is available online at http://leymquaker.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/aq3f2.pdf.
On the Calendar
- August 18: After meeting for worship, Emma Seif will share her recent experiences at the Interlochen Arts Camp.
- Aug. 21-25: The Occupy Movement will hold an international gathering in Kalamazoo. The Kalamazoo Friends Meeting will keep their meetinghouse open around the clock, to provide a quiet place for meditation or reflection, sleeping room for up to 20 people and possibly space for small workshops or meetings. The Kalamazoo Friends will need help to staff the building at all times. Please contact Joe Ossmann to volunteer, at 269-913-4250 or Joe.Ossmann@comcast.net All help will be greatly appreciated.
- August 25: After meeting for worship, there will be singing and a library work party.
News and Notes
- Can you help the Miller-Seif family with food needs? During Jenn’s pregnancy they are requesting help with the following: 50-pound bags of unbleached flour, brown rice, whole oats or quick oats, and Michigan-produced sugar or beet sugar; boxes of whole wheat spaghetti and bags of wide egg noodles; home-canned tomatoes and vegetables; whole-grain cold cereal; dried fruit and items to make granola; canola oil; yeast for bread; denim (10 yards blue, black or grey); heavier muslin (20 yards).
- Here’s an update on the GRFM Library. Thanks to Amy Ranger for taking the lead with the Meeting’s library and getting us started on some much needed organizing. She is passing that on due to her many Friends obligations. Thanks to Jenn, Pat, and Robert who helped with organizing in July. The southern facing bookshelf is now in alphabetical order by author. The western facing bookshelf is yet to be organized. It houses Pendle Hill pamphlets by number. The sign-out book is found!!! So if you have a book out without logging it, please sign it out. If you have an outstanding book, please return it on the west top shelf so we can enter it into a spreadsheet, which we are creating with Amy's oversight. If you are interested in being a part of this endeavor, ask Judi for ways you can help out.
- Grand Rapids will host an eminent scholar of early Christianity October 15 during the 2013 West Michigan Consortium Conference at Calvin Theological Seminary. This year’s topic is Religious Polemics and Religious Fairness. The keynote speaker will be Dr. Margaret Mitchell, dean of the University of Chicago Divinity School and a literary historian of ancient Christianity. Her research and teaching span a range of topics in New Testament and early Christian writings up through the end of the 4th century, with a special interest in the Pauline letters, the poetics and politics of ancient biblical interpretation, and the intersection of text, image, and artifact in the fashioning of early Christian culture. More information is avaiable at http://www.gvsu.edu/interfaith.
