Gathering In Light

Blog Entries

Invisible People

Mark Harvath from Invisiblepeople.tv posted this story to the Huffington post the other day and a woman in my community shared it with me. I think it’s really hard to realize that stories like Sergei’s exist today, but they do and we come in contact with boys

Blog Entries

But the Good of Others, This Love is Lost

Isaac Penington was one of the earliest Quakers, he and his wife Mary were convinced after a long period of seeking, some believe by George Fox himself (I’ve written more about them here). The Peningtons, like many other early Friends, were met with great hostility and hatred by those

Blog Entries

M. Ward’s Three Queries

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToEPFDIzhNA&w=570&h=452] A few weeks ago I was hanging out with a friend who happened to mention he too loves M. Ward who happens to be one of my favorite singer/songwriters. He asked me if I knew

Blog Entries

Compassion Comes By Way of Gentleness

I subscribe to Sojourner’s Daily Verse and Voice and almost always find it inspiring. Today’s “voice” reminded me that all the compassionate intentions, energy and activism for the right causes doesn’t mean squat unless it comes from a person who has first gone through the process of

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The Testimony of Witness

This is my sermon from Sunday. If you’d like a little background to this, you can check out yesterday’s post “In Search of a New Frame for Evangelism and Mission.” This is my attempt at an initial response to the questions I raised there. Opening Queries For Discussion:

Church in Mission

In Search of a New Framework for Evangelism and Mission

One of the things I have become fascinated with over the course of the last decade falls  broadly under the umbrella known as missiology, or the study of Christian missions. I like many of you have a history with big ‘E’ Evangelicalism where mission is generally understood as “winning souls

Blog Entries

But Will It Make You Happy?

Jason Minnix, a friend and Quaker pastor, emailed this article to the NWYM pastor’s email list. I think it’s a good article worth discussion around the coffee table this week. She had so much.Two cars. Enough wedding china to serve two dozen people.Yet Tammy Strobel wasnt

Blog Entries

Quaker Youth Pilgrimage 2010 Epistle

Micah Bales, one of the leaders of the Quaker Youth Pilgrimage, just posted their Epistle from the trip on his blog. Here’s one section that particularly stands out to me, especially after my recent post on the subject. As a gathered youth, we are empowered to speak of one

Blog Entries

A Blessing and a Benediction – Margaret Fell

I’ve been reading “Undaunted Zeal: The Letters of Margaret Fell” for school the last week or so and have found many gems in her writing. Margaret Fell is an early force within Quakerism often called the mother of Quakerism and the mother of feminism. One of the things I

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Those It Is Acceptable to Hate

This summer some of us from our church meet every other week to discuss a query dealing with some issue related to things happening around the world. A few weeks back we talked about a query dealing with the oil spill and how it is or is not affecting us,

Blog Entries

David Bazan Tour Documentary

As you already know I am a big David Bazan fan. Here’s a really great short film/documentary with a couple songs and some great footage. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzKB6MTCxGA?fs=1&hl=en_US&w=579&h=351] YouTube – David Bazan

Convergent Friends

Quaker Youth Pilgrimage Stops by Camas

This past weekend 29 youth and 3 adult leaders who have been traveling on a month long spiritual pilgrimage through the Pacific Northwest took a (planned) detour through Camas Washington and spent a few days with those of us at Camas Friends. They all slept and ate in our meeting

Blog Entries

And We’re Back!

Some of you may have noticed that over the last week this blog had a little bit of trouble. It got attacked by malware and was trying to spread that to anyone who visited the site. Fortunately enough, I don’t know of any serious problems it caused other than

The Pastorate

State of the Meeting Reports (Not Just Yet)

I decided I wanted to jump start a new tradition at Camas Friends today so I took the initiative and ran with it. I’ve been working on a state of the meeting report with the elders for a couple months and I’ve really been wanting to present it

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After 1,000 Blog Posts

Well, I just noticed that I’ve hit the 1,000 blog post mark. I’m not sure exactly what this means other than I have been blogging for a pretty long time, and have shared a lot of myself with the world. I have been blessed through this blog

Blog Entries

The New Quaker Ad Network

Just a quick note to say that Martin Kelley and Friends Journal have teamed up to create the Quaker Ad Network. Which is a pretty cool way for Quaker organizations, ministries and individuals to get the word out about events, products, etc.  If you represent one of these groups you

Blog Entries

Conversion(s) c

This is a continuation from posts a and b. I’ve caught myself in the last few years reacting to my Evangelical upbringing around conversion. Why does it have to look and sound one way for   everyone? It’s as if to say, “Come, go through the motions, say the

Blog Entries

Marriage Advice from Barrow Cadbury 1933

While preparing for a wedding this coming Saturday I ran across this quote from Barrow Cadbury (a Quaker who was related to and worked in the Cadbury Chocolate factory in Bournville England) on marital advice. I really enjoyed reading it. Barrow Cadbury, after forty years of marriage, wrote in 1933

The Cultural

There is No Pure Christianity

A long while back a friend of mine wrote on his twitter this remark: There is no pure Christianity, it is all syncretist. And I agree with this point, all Christianity today is influenced to a smaller or larger extent by outside forces. I’m not sure it’s ever

Blog Entries

Psalm 52: A Letter to Wall Street and Those of Similar Persuasion

Psalm 52. He and she who has ears to hear let them listen. To the fat cats of American capitalism: Why do you boast, O mighty one, of mischief done against the godly? All day long you are plotting destruction. Your tongue is like a sharp razor, you worker of

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The Queries and A Life of Discernment

Introduction Our world is made up of questions and ambiguities. Probably all of you have watched Jeopardy. The unique thing about the game of Jeopardy, besides its suave host Alex Trebek, is that the contestants respond with a question in order to score points.  For instance: Here is an answer

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John Woolman is Dead

Opening Prayer (from the bulletin?) “John Woolman is dead.” These words may at first appear to be simply an obvious  statement, uninteresting and useless. For some, it may be meaningless.Who is John Woolman, anyways? For others, to say that the 17th century Quaker abolitionist is dead understates the obvious

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The Testimony of Enough (Matthew 6:19-34)

Editorial note: This week we discussed over email the question “What comes to mind for you when you think of plainness (or simplicity)?” We had a ton of responses from people on our church’s email group. All the responses were thoughtful and helpful. Because there was such a great

Blog Entries

An Uneasy Task for the Church – Romero

This is the mission entrusted to the church, a hard mission: to uproot sins from history, to uproot sins from the political order, to uproot sins from the economy, to uproot sins wherever they are. What a hard task! It has to meet conflicts amid so much selfishness, so much

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Composting Quakerism: A Podcast Of Quaker Ministers from the NW

Last fall a few of us (younger) Quaker ministers from the Northwest Yearly Meeting got together to start work on a podcast. After a little deliberation we decided to call it Composting Quakerism (Facebook page), bringing together two of my very favorite things. Compost is rife with theological allusion, and