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Unity In Indiana Yearly Meeting

By Amy Dennis I grew up in Indiana Yearly Meeting. As a child I learned of the great things Quakers accomplished in the past through their personal faith in Christ Jesus. Early on I was taught to read and memorize scripture and to apply it to my life. I experienced great times of worship, heard the gospel and, at Quaker…

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A Community Of Refugees

By Michael D. Sherman Raysville is an interesting place. In many ways it is a prototypical small Friends meeting, aging, struggling with issues of viability and sustainability. I have been their pastor for almost nine years, now. They hired me deliberately as a young man to reach out to a younger demographic, at that point the meeting’s foundation rested in…

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Staying In Unity

By Linda Daniel I have been asked to describe the process by which Friends Memorial Church in Muncie came to unity on how we regard non-heterosexual relationships. I’m struggling to find a starting point. The monthly business meeting at Friends Memorial Church did not actively participate in the early discussions of whether or not to affirm gay/lesbian relationships. To most…

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Witnessing to a Loving and Inclusive Community

By Michael D. Levi As I had forsaken the priests, so I left the separate preachers also, and those esteemed the most experienced people; for I saw there was none among them all that could speak to my condition. And when all my hopes in them and in all men were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help…

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A Unified Front

By Megan L. Anderson We live in occupied territory. The Enemy overruns our world, and we as Christ-followers comprise the minority. Our simple acknowledgment of the Savior is an act of treason and it isn’t taken lightly. Look around our congregations. Attendance and participation dwindles. Petty squabbles crop up like weeds. Gossip circulates regularly. These are signs of enemy subterfuge…

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Passages: Quaker Obituaries – March/April 2013

ORLOVA Galina Evgenievna Orlova, May 10, 1937 – December 23, 2012. On December 26, 2012 Moscow Quakers joined a Russian Orthodox congregation at the Church of the Holy Wonderworkers and Unmercenaries Cosmas and Damian at the Botkin Hospital, to mark the death of, and thank God for, Galina Orlova. Galina, who had died three days earlier, was one of the…

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Book Reviews – March/April 2013

Living Without Enemies: Being Present in the Midst of Violence (Resources for Reconciliation) By Samuel Wells & Marcia A. Owen Edited by Emmanuel Katongole & Chris Rice Intervarsity Press, 143 pp., $10.99 The Center for Reconciliation at Duke Divinity School is living its ministry by demonstrating the power of collaboration with this book. Strongly rooted at opposite ends of the…

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Letters to the Editor – March/April 2013

To the Editor of Quaker Life, I appreciated the January/February 2013 issue concerning the Friend’s testimony on equality, though it seemed to me the elephant in the room was left unmentioned marriage equality for gays and lesbians. In my vocation as a Quaker pastor, writer, and speaker, I’ve witnessed many denominations in the United States and Canada undertake the hard…

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Ask Tom: When did the idea of clearness committees come into practice? And — how does one come to unity through a clearness committee?

To be “clear” is a concept that recurs with some regularity in the writings of Friends from the 1650s down to the present day. It usually conveyed one of three meanings. One was guiltlessness. Consider, for example, Samuel Fisher’s exhortation to nonbelievers in 1662, “It shall please me enough that in this work I have pleased God, and am clear…

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Spiritual Direction From A Friends Perspective

By Manny Garcia Spiritual direction was a fairly new concept to me when I began my Master of Arts coursework in Transformational Leadership at Barclay College Graduate School. However, having taken a training class in this form of ministry, I have found it to be integral in engaging others to experience God’s presence in every aspect of life. The art…

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