A new year, some new opportunities…
In the next week (after my kids finally go back to school) I am going to write about the opportunities and invitations to travel in the ministry that I already know about for the coming year.
First though, I want to share with you all, my beloved readers, the traveling minute that was approved by my monthly meeting back in November. What do you think?
Eleventh Month 2007
Dear Friends,
We are pleased to introduce our Friend Robin Mohr. She has been a beloved member of our meeting since 1996.
We affirm and are committed to support Robin’s leading to travel and gather Friends from different branches of Quakerism for communal meals, conversation and worship. We continue to encourage Robin to write about these experiences for publication in various Friendly media. We expect her to report back to her monthly meeting regularly and seek continued discernment, support and guidance for this work.
Robin has found Friends in different places, generations, and branches of Friends who share a similar sensibility: seeking a deep understanding of our Quaker heritage and an authentic life in the kingdom of God on Earth, radically inclusive of all who seek to live this life. It includes, among others, Friends from the politically liberal end of the evangelical branch, the Christian end of the unprogrammed branch, and the more outgoing end of the conservative branch.
Robin brings a great passion for enlivening and deepening Quakerism to her ministry. She has nurtured children’s and adult religious education programs in our meeting, at College Park Quarterly Meeting, and at the annual summer gatherings of Pacific Yearly Meeting and Friends General Conference.
In Eighth Month 2005, Robin began writing regularly for her web “blog” titled “What Canst Thou Say?”. Through her writing, Robin connected to bloggers representing a wide variety of Quaker traditions. So intrigued by these online discussions, Robin felt compelled to arrange face-to-face gatherings to continue these powerful discussions of faith, to share hospitality and fellowship and to worship together. The travel and gatherings have led to further writing which in turn continues to generate more invitations to travel.
We are grateful for your interest in Robin’s ministry. We trust she will be faithful in following Spirit’s leading during her time with you. We are holding Robin and your gathering in the Light and wish you blessings in your time of fellowship and dialog. We are excited to see how her time with you will nurture future seeds of ministry which will in turn enrich our meeting community as well.
We invite you to endorse this traveling minute for Robin to bring home and share with us. We are eager to know: How has this time of fellowship and dialog touched your community?
We commend our Friend Robin to your loving care.
In the Light,
Clerk, San Francisco Monthly Meeting
Clerk, Ministry & Oversight Committee
First though, I want to share with you all, my beloved readers, the traveling minute that was approved by my monthly meeting back in November. What do you think?
Eleventh Month 2007
Dear Friends,
We are pleased to introduce our Friend Robin Mohr. She has been a beloved member of our meeting since 1996.
We affirm and are committed to support Robin’s leading to travel and gather Friends from different branches of Quakerism for communal meals, conversation and worship. We continue to encourage Robin to write about these experiences for publication in various Friendly media. We expect her to report back to her monthly meeting regularly and seek continued discernment, support and guidance for this work.
Robin has found Friends in different places, generations, and branches of Friends who share a similar sensibility: seeking a deep understanding of our Quaker heritage and an authentic life in the kingdom of God on Earth, radically inclusive of all who seek to live this life. It includes, among others, Friends from the politically liberal end of the evangelical branch, the Christian end of the unprogrammed branch, and the more outgoing end of the conservative branch.
Robin brings a great passion for enlivening and deepening Quakerism to her ministry. She has nurtured children’s and adult religious education programs in our meeting, at College Park Quarterly Meeting, and at the annual summer gatherings of Pacific Yearly Meeting and Friends General Conference.
In Eighth Month 2005, Robin began writing regularly for her web “blog” titled “What Canst Thou Say?”. Through her writing, Robin connected to bloggers representing a wide variety of Quaker traditions. So intrigued by these online discussions, Robin felt compelled to arrange face-to-face gatherings to continue these powerful discussions of faith, to share hospitality and fellowship and to worship together. The travel and gatherings have led to further writing which in turn continues to generate more invitations to travel.
We are grateful for your interest in Robin’s ministry. We trust she will be faithful in following Spirit’s leading during her time with you. We are holding Robin and your gathering in the Light and wish you blessings in your time of fellowship and dialog. We are excited to see how her time with you will nurture future seeds of ministry which will in turn enrich our meeting community as well.
We invite you to endorse this traveling minute for Robin to bring home and share with us. We are eager to know: How has this time of fellowship and dialog touched your community?
We commend our Friend Robin to your loving care.
In the Light,
Clerk, San Francisco Monthly Meeting
Clerk, Ministry & Oversight Committee
Labels: convergent, meeting work, myjourney
posted by Robin M. at 8:10 PM
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13 Comments:
I think it's faboo! But then, I co-signed it. :)
Honestly, I'm proud of your wish to stay accountable to the monthly meeting. You are well on your way to being in gospel order, Friend.
-- Chris M.
I think it is a wonderful leading for a terrific ministry and hope to participate if you find yourself led to this neck of the woods. I have only one reservation: In the paragraph dealing with where you have found and expect to find support is the phrase, "the Christian end of the unprogrammed branch," and I would prefer to see it phrased more like, "the end of the unprogrammed branches which are open to Christian expression of faith." Just slightly more inclusive, I'd say, and an area worth exploring.
In His Love,
Nate Swift
Medford, OR
Thanks for sharing this on here. I hope our paths cross again this year!
Robin,
I am delighted that your meeting is supporting your work. It is hopeful to me to know of meetings willing to do that. May your work be blessed.
Callie Marsh
West Branch Meeting (Conservative)
Iowa
Sounds like a person that I would like to meet. If you are in Wisconsin and time allows it,I hope you stop in. I have been reading
your blog for several years and wish to thank you for your postings.
Peace
Glenn
Thanks everybody!
Chris, thank you as always for your support. Maybe others will have noticed that the letter is co-signed. I think it would ordinarily just be signed by the clerk of the meeting, but I didn't want it to look like you had just written it for me...
Nate,
Alas, there is always a tension between completeness and conciseness in describing anything.
Two summers ago, I made a trip to Newberg, OR, at the beginning of this saga. If you use the Blogger search feature to search my blog for "Newberg", you'll get most of that story. I would dearly love to come back to Oregon, and maybe travel a little more widely. Make me an offer, or at least a specific suggestion, and I will seek God's will in response...
Liz - I will be at FGC's summer gathering again this year. Watch this blog for more details in the next couple of weeks...
Callie, it has been a work of push and pull to stay in the dance with my own meeting around this work. My meeting has supported me with serious committees, a little money, and much love. But I had to ask specifically and firmly for this minute to be considered. It was after PYM this summer that I realized that what I was doing was akin to earlier traveling ministers appointing a meeting for worship to be held in the next town they were coming to. In my case, it's more like a a called meeting for worship-sharing, but it is more than just a dinner party. I think the next step is to ask my yearly meeting to endorse the minute of my monthly meeting since I expect to be traveling outside my yearly meeting again in the coming year.
Glenn, thank you for your kind words. If you are ever in the San Francisco area, please let me know!
Will do, eagerly awaiting!! :) I hope to apply once apps are avaliable--if they will have me back another time!
So that's what you do. I want to stop by even more now.
Also- you won. I need to know how to send you your prize. Well, I know how. I need to know where.
Skybalon, I'm honored! Can you send an email to me via robinmsf at earth link dot net? I'll send you my address. I would love to have a a copy of His Glorious Reappearing by James White, an 1895 text telling us how we know that Jesus is returning about 100 years ago.
Having given thought and prayer to the subject, I feel that the thing I should do is let you know that we are sort of on the fringes ofactivity here: there are two NWYM Meetings and one North Pacific. I attend the Medford Meeting and visit the Ashland Meeting occasionally, and we have had a "pan-Quaker picnic" among us and some people in Klamath Falls and will again this Summer. I would venture to say we are close to 8 hours from San Francisco and about 4 hours on to Salem, so I would suggest that a stopover with accomodations for a night on the way to a more extended vist further north might be a reasonable thing to consider. Say dinner when you get here with whomever seems interested and then on, rested and with not too grueling a drive. Throw a brick my way if and when plans develop and you are interested: nateswift@msn.com
Nate, thank you for your kind offer and further consideration.
I will bring this information to the next meeting of my anchor committee, and we will consider if and when I might be heading back up that way. Given my other travel commitments, it may be a while, but I will put this down on the list of friendly invitations.
By the way, do you know my Friend Pam - currently a member of the Ashland meeting, but formerly from San Francisco?
"By the way, do you know my Friend Pam - currently a member of the Ashland meeting, but formerly from San Francisco?"
Dang, I'm SO bad with names. I think I know whom you mean. I'll be checking when i next get an opportunity to visit.
In His Love,
Nate
Nate, Sorry to ask a vague question like that. As a further hint, Pam J. is older than me, but I'm older than her adult children. I don't know how active she is with the Ashland meeting, but I would expect her to be in pretty deep. Anyway, if you do meet her, say hi for me!
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