Convergent Friends Workshop

With the Pickett grant, I will be leading a workshop at the 2013 FGC Gathering.  The following is a description of the workshop and some information about me and Aimee McAdams, who will be serving as my elder.

Convergent Friends: Worship and Conversation 

FGC Gathering, June 30 - July 6, 2013

 University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO

2013 Theme: At the Growing Edges of our Faith

Workshop Number: 9 
Who may register?: Open to All (adult & high school) 
Worship/Worship-Sharing: 40% 
Lecture: 5% 
Discussion: 25% 
Experiential Activities: 30% 

“Convergent Friends” describes a movement of Quakers coming together across the branches of Friends to discover the best of our tradition. We will explore different kinds of worship and share how God is at work in our lives. Come prepared to be changed by the Spirit present among us. 

“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” Isaiah 43:19. 

Where is the life in the Religious Society of Friends? How does truth prosper among us? How can we engage one another across our differences? Each day, we will engage in different kinds of worship, including semi-programmed worship with singing and vocal prayer, extended open worship, and worship-sharing. We will spend time sharing the names we use to describe the Divine, and why those words are meaningful for us. We will also share stories about our experiences encountering different kinds of Friends, and how we saw the Spirit through them. One day, we will focus on different kinds of prayer, and walk through an interactive Stations of the Lord’s Prayer together. We will also explore Bible reading in the Conservative Friends tradition. Be ready to speak from your own experience and listen deeply. There will be time for sharing in small groups, art, music, and laughter. 

Everyone is welcome. 

Please Bring: 
A Bible (any translation) 
Any art supplies you would like to share 

Required Reading: 
Acts 2 
Eight Questions on Convergent Friends: An Interview with Robin Mohr 

Recommended Reading: 
A Testament of Devotion, by Thomas R. Kelly 
Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers, by Anne Lamott 
Essays on the Quaker Vision of Gospel Order, by Lloyd Lee Wilson 

About the leaders: 

Ashley Wilcox is a member of Freedom Friends Church in Salem, Oregon and a graduate of the School of the Spirit Ministry's program On Being a Spiritual Nurturer, class of 2011. Ashley served as clerk of Freedom Friends in 2011-12 and was co-clerk of the planning committee for the 2010 Pacific Northwest Quaker Women’s Theology Conference. She first developed parts of this workshop while traveling with other ministers to visit meetings, churches, and yearly meetings in the Pacific Northwest. She then presented it as a three-day thread group at the Sixth World Conference of Friends in Kenya. Ashley has traveled in the ministry as a minister and an elder and carries a concern for supporting ministers in the Religious Society of Friends. Her writing has been published in Western Friend, Friends Journal, various Quaker anthologies, and on her blog, www.questforadequacy.blogspot.com.

Aimee McAdams will be serving as an elder for Ashley during the workshop. Aimee grew up in Oregon attending Quaker churches in Northwest Yearly Meeting. She moved to Washington state, met her husband-to-be at FGC in Tacoma, and then moved to Minnesota where she attends two different Northern Yearly Meeting meetings. She has been involved with Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) for several years and was thrilled to attend the recent World Conference in Kenya, where she served on the Pastoral Care committee.

Click here to see the workshop description on the FGC website.