Meeting for Sufferings: Questions and considerations for QLCC
Jocelyn Burnell spoke to the report of Quaker Life Central Committee
Having started as a ‘rather self-contained part’ of Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) – ‘doing great work, but it didn’t work a lot with other parts of the organisation’ – Quaker Life Central Committee (QLCC) has been on ‘a huge journey,’ Jocelyn Burnell said.
The clerk of QLCC told Meeting for Sufferings on 24 November that it had risen to the challenge and is now far more proactive.
‘To state the obvious,’ she said, ‘Quaker Life Central Committee is concerned with Quaker life – all aspects of it: spiritual [and] outreach.’
QLCC is ‘now operating in a very different way and is still experimenting …’. It is active in ‘great spiritual depth’.
However, she asked: ‘Are we collectively flogging a dead horse? Is there a better a way of doing things?’ She was ‘worried by a persistent theme’ with regard to reports. Was sufficient time devoted to them?
A Friend said: ‘My experience of being a Quaker Life representative is that I put a great deal effort into engaging with my Area Meeting… If I’m lucky, I will be given a five-minute slot.’
There was laughter when another Friend said: ‘I’m allowed five minutes – but I am married to the Area Meeting clerk.’
It was stressed by one Friend that: ‘There is a need to understand that the central work is there to give life – Quaker life – to each of us at Meeting,’
Other Friends pointed to the value of considering ‘what they could do in the newsletter’, support groups and using groups online.
A Friend said there was ‘a lack of opportunity to discuss Quaker values and practice’.
Another Friend said: ‘This touches on something deep – the need to get involved beyond Local Meeting. We can become cosy and parochial. We should be more spiritual.’
Sufferings heard that one Meeting had held a session on ‘All you wanted to know about Quakers but were afraid to ask’. This had been much appreciated and a follow-up had been requested.
There was a general welcome for the ‘invitation to think again about how we work together’.
A Friend from Wales asked about ‘supporting isolated Friends’ and was ‘concerned about an apparent lack of progress’.
Jocelyn Burnell said that the Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) maintains a list of isolated Friends. Work in this area ‘is progressing, but rather slowly. We have learned more about what doesn’t work’.
She also told Sufferings that were ‘hints of a crisis of eldership in BYM. If this is the case, it must be addressed.’
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