1.30.2007

PYM Queries for Sabbath Year

Tonight at San Francisco Monthly Meeting of Pacific Yearly Meeting (PYM) of the Religious Society of Friends:

6:00 Meeting for worship
6:30 Brown bag supper
7:00 consideration of the PYM Queries for the Year of Discernment 2006-2007

Here's the queries from the PYM website:

Ministry and Oversight Committee for Pacific Yearly Meeting invites Monthly Meetings, Yearly Meeting Committees, and the Yearly Meeting as a whole, to engage in a discernment process to determine right order for the Yearly Meeting and for our lives as Friends. Some see this as a Sabbath or Jubilee year where we step back and re-order our priorities so that we are in right relationship to Spirit. Ministry and Oversight welcomes your comments and learnings as you experiment with these queries. Send them to [the clerk of PYM M&O]

  1. Sabbath involves both a saying no and a saying yes. (It does not mean just resting.)
    What must we stop doing in order to hear God’s word for us?
    How can we step back in order to renew our covenant relationship with God?

  2. Are there aspects of our processes, habits or organization that enslave us?
    What structures or organization does the Monthly or Yearly Meeting need to lay the ground work for Spirit?

  3. What disciplines or preparations do I need to establish in order to engage in discernment?
    Can I trust Spirit to carry me when I stop or slow my outward activities?

  4. Sabbath can also be seen as a radical challenge to the prevailing over-achieving, consumer culture. What are we, in Pacific Yearly Meeting, or in our Monthly Meetings, called to do as people living in that life and power that is one with the earth and takes away the occasion of all wars and strife?


Resources for the Discernment Process [with comments by me.]

Testament of Devotion, Thomas Kelly - especially the chapter on simplifying our lives.

Friends Bulletin, November 2006, articles by Tony Prete on Sabbath and Joe Franko, clerk of PYM. [The November issue is not yet available online as a PDF.]

Friends Journal, October 2006, an issue of challenging articles are where Friends are being called. [with articles by me and Martin Kelley!]

Widening Circles of Friends, concentric circle exercises by Jane Peers, La Jolla Meeting.


I'd also add my blogpost right after the 2005 PYM sessions: Jubilee! The comments especially were worth reading.

It's probably a little late to post this now but all are welcome.

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Blogger Robin M. said...

The discussion last night was good. One Friend scribed the responses for us and we'll be condensing them a bit and publishing them in the newsletter next month. Then Friends will have the opportunity to react if they wish and we'll forward the whole package to the clerk of our yearly meeting's ministry and oversight committee.

One of the things that was interesting to me was that I found that these queries made a lot of sense when I read them, but they didn't work very well for worship sharing.

We will also begin a process of exploring the same themes as part of preparing our annual State of the Meeting report.

1/31/2007 5:27 PM  

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