Monthly meeting has yet to decide whether it will be independent or join SCYMF
In a letter to Northwest Yearly Meeting leadership, Silverton Friends announced its decision to fully welcome gender and sexual minorities who want to be part of the worshiping community. The congregation approved the following minute in a nearly three-hour business meeting on September 24:
We are a community that loves one another, yet even in our love we do not find ourselves in full agreement regarding all matters of human sexuality. Even so, as Silverton Friends walks the path of Jesus together, the LGBTQ+ community will be welcome to fully participate in the life of the Meeting.
Silverton Clerk of Elders John Pattison sent a copy of the letter to the congregation last night, explaining that “this minute puts us outside NWYM Faith and Practice, which means, unfortunately, that we as a church have to make a decision in the coming months about whether or not to join the new yearly meeting or be an independent church.”
A February meeting at North Valley Friends brought together at least 76 people from 14 different churches in Northwest Yearly Meeting (NWYM) to hear more about what it might mean to start a new yearly meeting. An earlier post reported that 12 churches were represented, but the sign-up sheet – uncovered in efforts to establish the historic documentation for Sierra-Cascades Yearly Meeting of Friends (SCYMF) – includes people from two churches left out of that original report.
Represented churches included
Camas
Eugene
Hillsboro
Klamath Falls
Newberg
North Seattle
North Valley
Reedwood
Rosedale
Second Street
Silverton
South Salem
Tigard
West Hills
Of those, Rosedale has announced its plan to stay with NWYM. Newberg has split into two congregations – Newberg Friends Church and Newberg Emerging Friends Church – with Newberg Friends Church staying in NWYM while Newberg Emerging Friends Church is leaving. Other churches leaving the yearly meeting include North Seattle and Reedwood. Churches removed from the yearly meeting include Camas, Eugene, Klamath Falls and West Hills.
Click here to read the minutes from the meeting at North Valley on February 18.
At the end of mid-year boards this last January, the Administrative Council announced its decision to restructure Northwest Yearly Meeting (NWYM) and to create a transition team to “facilitate the creation of a newly formed yearly meeting.”
That same day, at least 21 yearly meeting board members and monthly meeting representatives met briefly and then signed up for more information about future meetings and gatherings that might lead to the creation of a new yearly meeting.
Members of churches leaving NWYM have been gathering documentation for the historic records of what is now being called Sierra-Cascades Yearly Meeting of Friends. These unofficial minutes from the meetings in January are part of that record as are these notes from a called meeting of representatives from December 10, 2016.