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The General Board of Friends United Meeting met last week for their October sessions. For the first time, the African and North American/Caribbean Regions met for a highly unusual international hybrid session. Board members gathered in person in the chapel of Friends Theological College in Kaimosi, Kenya, and at the FUM office in Richmond, Indiana. Other members joined from their homes online. Given that our presiding clerk, Sarah Lookabill, was ill, the session was co-clerked by Hastings Ozwara and Scott Wagoner, FUM’s Assistant Clerks. Each region conducted its business and addressed matters related to its region during times when it was inconvenient for the other region to fully participate. On Friday, the two regions met together to do shared work and receive reports related to the entire FUM community. The Recording Clerks for both regions will collaborate to produce consolidated minutes of these unusual sessions.
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Editor’s note: During this election season, when our political life in the United States seems especially contentious, Friends United Meeting has invited a variety of Friends to share their thoughts on how to navigate as a Quaker through these divided times. Our eighth installment is by Kat Griffith, of Northern Yearly Meeting. Beating Megaphones Into Ear Trumpets*—Being a Friend in This Election CycleOn my bike ride today I passed by a big new sign that said “Trump 2024 F*** Your Feelings.” I took a picture before continuing on my way—a nudge to think about the query, “What does it mean to be a Friend in this election cycle?”The thing is, I represent this guy on the county board. And I find that serving in elected office has changed both my vision and my options for Friendly political activism.
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Friends United Meeting sends Living Letters trips to join in the celebration and to experience the life and witness of Cuban Quakerism. We hope to encourage Friends, and to worship with Friends in Cuba, and to receive encouragement from Friends on the island. This one-week intervisitation trip is gentle enough for older Friends and is focused on sharing in worship and fellowship.
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Mark 4:10 – “When he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables”. Sometimes allows situations in our lives that would call for a time of solitude with Him. God may allow this by affliction, temptation, heartbreak, disappointment, sickness or by simply thwarting affection by a broken relationship by a loved one. When He gets us absolutely alone, and we are dumbfounded by the situation and we cannot even ask a question – then He begins to expound and make things clearer to our minds so that we can know Him better. When you look at the life of Jesus Christ with the disciples, it was the disciples who were perplexed by His deeds and not the crowds outside.
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Genesis 22:9 – 9 When they came to the place God had told him about, Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood on it. Next he tied up his son Isaac and placed him on the altar on top of the wood. The blunder many believers make I to think that, the last thing that God wants from them is the sacrifice of death, but when we carefully look at the passage above, we realize that God is interested on the sacrifice through death which enables us to do what Christ Jesus did.
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Mathew 4:19 - He said to them, “Follow me, and I will turn you into fishers of people!” For us to become effective co-workers with Christ, we must come to a place of fully accepting our ministry call. 1 Thess. 5:23 – Now may the God of peace himself make you completely holy and may your spirit and soul and body be kept entirely blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Your whole spirit… the great mystical work of the Holy Spirit is in the less bright side of our personality which we can get at. This is what David thought when he wrote Psalm 139 and said – “though art the God of the early Mornings, the God of the late nights, the God of the mountain peaks and greater depth than any sea in nature – You are the God of all these, be my God. I cannot reach the depth of the horizons of my soul without you. Take my hand and lead me in ways everlasting.
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Throughout our history, the people known as Friends (or Quakers) keep rediscovering an essential and enduring truth: There is one who speaks to our most basic needs and most significant hopes—Christ Jesus the Lord. Both individually and communally, we are learning to know and follow the Voice that guides us in the way we should go. Together, we seek to understand and obey that truth which sets us free. As a people, we share in the experience of that powerful life which makes all things new. Maybe you are searching for an authentic and transforming faith and community to call home—if so, come in and join us as we seek to know and follow Christ.
Friends United Meeting commits itself to energize and equip Friends through the power of the Holy Spirit to gather people into fellowships where Jesus Christ is known, loved, and obeyed as Teacher and Lord.
