Through the Flaming Sword

Introduction

Philadelphia Yearly Meeting is threshing out a potentially new understanding of membership, as are a number of other yearly meetings. Young adults are driving this exploration, having become clear that the traditional membership framework is not working for them in many ways in many cases.

I think this may be the beginning of a profound movement toward renewal in the Religious Society of Friends, just as young adults drove earlier reformations, in the 1870s and ‘80s toward programmed worship and pastoral meetings, and in the 1890s toward what we now call liberal Quakerism. Therefore, I think this development deserves serious attention to how the Spirit may now be moving among us.

So this is the first post in a series about membership that tries to clarify the issues and identify the ways that the spirit of Christ may be opening before us; that is, how the spirit of direct communion with the Mystery Reality that lies behind or within our religious experience may be speaking to us through our experience.

I’m still developing ideas as I go, but these subjects are already clear to me:

• Clearness about the roots of membership.
• What meetings (should) offer members.
• How do we meet the needs expressed by our young adults?
• Membership as covenant.

Next pos: Clearness about membership.

Tagged: membership