Note, too, that many of the terms and phrases in the far left column come directly from Thomas Gates' pamphlet Members One of Another. The notation I used in the previous chart didn't carry over to this one... and neither did any of the links, it turns out.
Blessings,
Liz
Love and Belonging: Consideration of how we as Friends belong to one another, to Quakerism, and to God, regardless of how long we have been among Friends.
Belong to one another | Belong to Quakerism | Belong to God/Love | |
Welcome & Acceptance | provide and request care and nurture | ||
be there for one another (crisis of faith; marriage; memorials; clearness; etc.) | |||
be curious about the movement of the Spirit, of Love, in one another's lives | |||
Shared Values | participate in one another's lives, not just knowing about each other | commit to engage in Quaker practices and disciplines | maintain Love at the center of our life and faith |
be active in the life of the Meeting during and between Meetings for Worship | waiting upon the Light in times of difficulty3 | ||
act together and reflect together on Root and fruit of the Testimonies (indiv and corporate levels) | |||
Transformation | share our ministries, leadings, and struggles with one another; be vulnerable with each other | be willing to seek new Light in difficult times and from difficult people; be willing to wrestle with others | be willing to grow into our measure of Light |
bear witness to the transformation of one another | provide mutual accountability and mutual encouragement | be willing to wrestle with God | |
Obedience | test our leadings with one another | Engage in faithfulness and a humble obedience; be willing to yield | |
"exhort one another daily" to be faithful to how we are called1 | |||
Caution | feeling accepted does not provide an automatic "in" for membership; feeling accepted does not mean individualism and secularism should replace tending to the Root and minding the Light | can the Meeting allow itself to grow because of a Friend's ministry/new Light? "what is important is not how far one has traveled, but rather one's commitment to travel this particular path we call Quakerism"2 | can the Meeting allow its members to grow beyond the confines of the Meeting; can we avoid pressuring one another to conform to the Meeting's "culture"? |
Challenge | inconvenience ourselves to make time for others | inconvenience ourselves to uphold Quaker practices and to grow as a Meeting | inconvenience ourselves to receive God's love, to be broken open, to be obedient to God's call |
1. Epistle XXII, by George Fox.
2. Members One of Another, by Thomas Gates, p. 36
3. see Epistle X, by George Fox.
No comments:
Post a Comment
I am moderating comments for posts older than 30 days, so you may not necessarily see your comment online right away. I retain the right to choose *not* to publish comments, especially if they are for particularly old posts, and/or if the comment repeats points made in earlier comments. --Liz