World Plenary 2024 - part seven

The Friend reports on the third Business Meeting at the FWCC World Plenary in South Africa (5-12 August)

After the early excitement of arrival, a jubilant opening ceremony, and a small electrical fire (see 16 August), by Sunday’s Business Meeting Three, Friends at this year’s World Plenary had settled into something of a routine. 

After worship and Saturday’s minutes, Friends heard LaVonna Loesch give the final report from the Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) sections: the Americas. Speakers at the table were given notes about the length of time they were expected to speak. LaVonna had one that said ‘two minutes’ but, to giggles, said she was ‘going to claim the one that says five’.

‘As we walk through our days, life is revealed to us as complex and challenging,’ she said. ‘To live from the light, the core of goodness within us all, is the hope. In the Section of the Americas, God has revealed themselves to us.’

It had been a season of change for the section: a new clerk and executive secretary, new staff, and new funds for interpretation – most the section’s work is bilingual, and efforts were being made to ensure full participation of members in Latin America.

Friends in the section were working on a new project, Quaker Connect, ‘designed to reinvigorate the Quaker movement… designed to equip churches and Meetings to be more clearly who we are meant to be: profoundly Quaker, deeply rooted, and highly visible in their local community’.

LaVonna finished with Isaiah 43:19: ‘Look, I am doing something new, now it emerges; can you not see it? Yes, I am making a road in the desert and rivers in wastelands.’

‘We would love for you to join us… as we walk into this new adventure.’

Next, FWCC general secretary Tim Gee offered a report: ‘Towards our future – Strategic directions for FWCC.’ All sections had been consulted on this document and it would be used to guide the work of FWCC. It had six key points. 

The first involved taking action on the outcomes of the World Plenary. A justice and peace secretary was in place to ensure capacity to act on this.

Nurturing Young Adult Friends was the second point, and there was exciting news coming later in the gathering about how young Friends were organising themselves internationally.

Then came the mission ‘to express our common heritage and our Quaker message to the world’. At present this was ‘a very small part of our work,’ said Tim. Prioritising it ‘would mean a much greater emphasis on external communications’.

‘Nurturing Quaker worship’ was another key point. Online worship presents significant opportunities for bringing Friends together and reaching new people, Tim went on, but it was crucial to address the ‘digital divide’. ‘A great many Friends do not have reliable access to the internet.’

Finally, the report was committed to the view that ‘a better approach to sharing resources is possible’.

Next, Gretchen Castle (former FWCC general secretary) began the work of approving the plenary epistle. The gathering had covered a lot of ground, she said, and the epistle couldn’t include everything, only a ‘general sense’. The draft was then read by Gregory Mthembu-Salter, of Southern Africa Yearly Meeting (SAYM). FWCC clerk Simon C Lamb asked Friends to limit their suggestions to one sentence, a request that was relatively well observed. The final document would be offered at the closing ceremony.

Simon then read the ‘Weaving’ document that brought together the three themes of the plenary (‘Ubuntu’; ‘Care for Creation’; and ‘Healing Historical and Ongoing Injustices’). This document had been addressed in an earlier session, in which Simon had admitted to being ‘slightly scared’, because the weaving covered issues that Friends ‘hold very preciously’. And indeed the discernment there had to be curtailed, there was so much of it. Simon had had to limit the number of contributions, but hoped that Friends would trust the discernment of the document drafters.

He was emotional as he read the finished piece in this session (reproduced in this issue).

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