convergent friends

FAHE Presentation at Woodbrooke This June

wess — Thu, 22 May 2008 16:33:24 +0000

On gatheringinlight I’ve posted a description of the convergent Friends workshop I’ll be doing in June. You can read over there for a more detailed explaination of the why’s and how’s. But I did want to post that description here as well.

Convergent Friends Workshop FAHE June 2008:

“To seek through meeting together and dialogue between the various strands of current Quakerdom new life and light under the leading of the Holy Spirit–something that might be called ‘convergent’ or ‘emergent’ Quakerism?”

St. Louis 1970 ‘Future of Friends’

Description of Convergent Friends:

Convergent Friends is best thought of as a conversation among a variety of Friends from every branch, and more technically, it can be thought of as a hermeneutic from which Quaker theology and history is read in light of today’s cultural transitions and challenges. It rejects the idea of being called a movement, organization or something that indicates institutionalization. It has no official ties and operates more as a meta-community for Quakers. On one hand, convergent Friends appeal to the important role of tradition in shaping the spiritual and moral lives of the people within that particular historical community. In this way it is a conservative sensibility because it takes seriously the primary texts, virtues and practices of those who started and profoundly shaped the Quaker tradition. This means that while not all convergent Friends are Christian, all are willing to wrestle with and acknowledge the importance of Quakerism as a part of the Christian narrative. On the other hand, it sees faith (and the church) as always emerging, never a static entity. Thus, these Friends seek to engage the questions of contemporary culture for the purpose of bring the whole of life under the worship and mission of God. In this sense, these Friends have had a specific affinity to the emerging/emergent church conversation because their theologians have sought to disengage the church from the secularizing affects of modernity, while engaging the questions and issues that revolve around late-modernity, or post-modernity.

Description of the workshop:

This workshop is a basic introduction to the convergent Friends conversation a brief history on the formation of this group, what they do to spread their message, what that message is (and why it is important) will be discussed. The workshop will consist of a short presentation, followed by interactive group discussion on this topic. You do not need to know anything about convergent Friends to participate.

Purpose of the workshop:

This workshop sets out to help people become acquainted with who the convergent Friends are, how they came about and what it is they do. The hope is that there will be some basic connections with concepts like emerging church, postmodernism, blogs, social networking, tradition and practice. An excitement about the possibilities not only of the future of the Quaker church, but also of its present - that is what people are already doing to help reinvent the tradition - should be communicated. Finally, one should be able to walk away with some imaginative stirrings about new and old ways to connect their everyday life and worship.

Outcomes/Objectives:

To be able to identify some of the key questions and issues convergent Friends are dealing with.
To know a basic history of how this group came about, and understand their uniqueness within Quakerism.
To recognize new ways in which the Quaker tradition is spreading.
To discover ways in which we can become involved with convergent Friends.

The Four Converging Areas:

These four areas operate as the very broad categories of which convergent Friends have traversed. On the one hand, these should not be seen as wholly separate groupings, rather, they often operate together, informing one another and enriching the conversation. On the other hand, it is the fact that there is a plurality of gifts and interests within this group of Friends, no different than the rest of the church. Some Friends emphasize different aspects of these features, picking up on those parts they are most interested and gifted in. This allows for a diversity of voices and ministry among the convergent Friends. I would note, as far as I know, those who consider themselves convergent Friends, acknowledge the need for all four of these aspects, even if they don’t focus on particular ones.

Emerging Church - Mission/Culture
Conservative - Tradition/Practice
Friendship - Ecumenicism/Theology/Community (theology is the basis for our need to work together, it is also the (un)common language that we have).
New Media (blogs, social networking, etc) - Community/Outreach

If you’re going to be at FAHE, my presentation is on Sunday at 9:30-10:45 in the Art Room (which I’m happy to have!).

Dinner Notice for North Carolina QUIP

wess — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 17:14:39 +0000

On Sunday, April 27, Robin Mohr will be in Greensboro, North Carolina. This day marks the end of the annual meetings of both Quakers United in Publishing and the Representative Body of North Carolina Yearly Meeting (Conservative), which both happen to be in Greensboro this year. She would love to have dinner with anyone else interested in convergent Friends. You can read more about her trip and send her an email via her blog.

Domain Renewal Time

wess — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 16:30:18 +0000

EDIT [Jan 30] - Thank you everyone for the support the cost is covered for the year!Our domain is up for renewal and I was wondering if anyone wanted to pitch in a buck or two to help cover it this year? It’s $10 a year and I don’t mind paying for most it but a little help is nice as well. Let me know if you’d like to chip in. We can do it through pay-pal.

Convergent Friends Gathering In April

wess — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 05:22:06 +0000

Robin recently announced a convergent Friends get together in Indiana this April, if you’re going to be there for FWCC you should check it out.

Quaker Quaker gets an Update

wess — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 05:09:59 +0000

If you haven’t seen it yet, you should check out QuakerQuaker.org. Martin Kelley, the mastermind behind the project, has updated the site, and added some great new features to the global Quaker blogging community.

Friends Journal: From the Kitchen to the Parlor

wess — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 14:14:50 +0000

Robin and Wess cowrote an article in this month’s Friends Journal on convergent Friends. It’s called From the ‘Kitchen’ to the ‘Parlor.’ Be sure to check it out.

Convergent Friends Dinner August 4th 2007 - Los Angeles

wess — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 21:07:17 +0000

From Robin: We finally have a location for the next convergent Friends dinner party on August 4, 2007! We’ll meet at the home of a Friend in Torrance (for more info please contact us). I expect that it will start around 5:00. Check here for further updates.

I expect that the menu will be takeout pizza plus whatever folks want to bring. If there is someone who lives in the LA region who would like to bring some homemade chocolate chip cookies, well, that would be lovely and, um, traditional. If I bring them, they’ll be a week old by the time I get to Torrance, if they don’t get eaten first.

This date has been set to correspond with the end of the annual sessions of Pacific Yearly Meeting. Last year, we had a small dinner on the same occasion at the home of Wess and Emily Daniels that was wonderful. The conversation was deep and blessed and fun. Since then, similar dinners were held in Berkeley and Boston this last March.

Please feel free to extend this invitation to other Friends who you think would be interested in conversation with other serious Friends from a variety of Quaker traditions. My shortest explanation of what I mean by convergent Friends is people who are engaged in the renewal movement within the Religious Society of Friends, across all the branches of Friends. Longer explanations are available on my blog.

If you’re thinking about coming, please let us know so we can do a little planning. If you have any questions, please let us know as well. Drop a comment below, or use the contact link above to send an email.

If you’re driving from Pacific Yearly Meeting, here is the google link for directions.

Convergent Friends Introduction and Other Downloadable Resources

wess — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 15:30:44 +0000

I’ve updated our resource page and our box.net widget (in the right sidebar) both contain links to downloadable resources for Convergent Friends stuff.

The one I am most excited about is Rachel Stacy’s fresh-off-the-press “Convergent Friends: An Introduction.” She offers some history, some theology and brings up some possible challenges to the cF conversation. She’s done a fantastic job, and included in it is a bibliography mainly of web-links for further reading.

Also - if you consider, or call yourself a convergent Friend and would like to be added to the blogroll here please leave a comment below so we can add you.

For a listing of resources you can visit box.net directly or check out the widget to the right.

Converging Around Jesus by David Male

wess — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 12:04:17 +0000

David Male, convergent Friend (who doesn’t have a blog), and member of Ohio Yearly Meeting (Conservative) has written about his encounter with Jesus. It’s a good story to read and like David, it is provocative.

In it he says,

After an experience at Ohio Yearly Meeting in which an old Quaker lady told me that she had stopped worrying about her sin and learned to “rest in the love of Jesus and let his blood wash away [her] sin,” the scales fell from my eyes. I was truly born again into a new heaven and a new earth in which all creation had a new smell. Before, I had come to believe that God had the power to raise Jesus from the dead. Now, I knew that he intended to use that power to restore all creation, beginning with me. It was no longer about me struggling to be the best person I could be so I could hopefully earn the love of God or at least feel better about being imperfect. It was all about the perfect love of God beginning to transform me into the child of God I was always meant to be.

Visit the Conservative Friends website for the rest of the article.

.org is ready

wess — Sun, 13 May 2007 16:33:42 +0000

I purchased the domain convergentfriends.org a while back - it’s now ready and working.