Issue 04-08-2017

Featured story

Thought for the Week: Community and belonging

FREE 3 Aug 2017 | by Ian Kirk-Smith

In the opening session of Yearly Meeting Gathering Mark Russ, of Woodbrooke, had hundreds of Friends stamping their feet, clicking their fingers, patting their hands on their chests and singing. Everyone in the huge Butterworth Hall at the University of Warwick seemed to be smiling: the young, teenagers, young adults...

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Yearly Meeting Gathering 2017: Main sessions

FREE 3 Aug 2017 | by Harry Albright

Friends gathering before the Swarthmore Lecture. | Photo: Elinor Smallman.

The main business sessions of Yearly Meeting 2017 began on Sunday morning with the appointment of the clerk, Deborah Rowlands, and the assistant clerks, Clare Scott Booth and Siobhan Haire, who were to direct affairs in the main auditorium with a combination of efficiency, quiet authority and humour.

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Yearly Meeting Gathering 2017: Montage

3 Aug 2017 | by Trish Carn and George Penaluna

Registration at Yearly Meeting Gathering in the University of Warwick. | Photo: Trish Carn.

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Yearly Meeting Gathering: Special interest groups

3 Aug 2017 | by reported by Ian Kirk-Smith, George Osgerby, Elinor Smallman and Jamie Wrench

Friends entering Warwick Arts Centre, where Yearly Meeting sessions were held. | Photo: Trish Carn.

Peace and security An impressive panel of Friends was assembled on Monday afternoon for a highly stimulating session on peace and security. Andrew Tomlinson, of the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) in New York; Jonathan Woolley, of QUNO in Geneva; Lucy Roberts, regional director of the American Friends Service Committee ...

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Nurturing ministry

3 Aug 2017 | by Clive Ashwin

Rembrandt van Rijn’s famous etching 'Christ Preaching'. | Photo: Via Wikimedia Commons.

Rembrandt’s etching Christ Preaching (1652) is a remarkable work of art, but it is also a penetrating essay on the nature of spoken ministry, which can provide us with valuable pointers as to its role and purpose today.

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Decline or revival?

FREE 3 Aug 2017 | by Laurence Hall

‘Isn’t it nice to have some young people at Meeting’ is one of the most repeated phrase that Young Adult Friends (YAFs) hear in Meeting – a well meaning phrase but one that points to a great sense of loss that is symptomatic of the deeper problems facing YAFs within...

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Yearly Meeting Gathering 2017: Revising the ‘Red Book’

3 Aug 2017 | by Harry Albright

The Revision Preparation Group (RPG) was formed by Meeting for Sufferings following Yearly Meeting’s inability to find unity in 2014 on the issue of whether to revise Quaker faith & practice (Qf&p). Since then the RPG has worked to help the Yearly Meeting to reach a place where...

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Reflections on the ‘Red Book’: Living simply

3 Aug 2017 | by Brian Baxter

The produce of the earth is a gift from our gracious creator to the inhabitants, and to impoverish the earth now to support outward greatness appears to be an injury to the succeeding age. John Woolman, 1772 Quaker faith & practice 25.01

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