In an email sent to the Reedwood Friends Church community, the Northwest Yearly Meeting elders served notice that, effective September 1, 2017, Reedwood would no longer be associated with NWYM. Read the email in its entirety below:
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NWYM Board of Elders action.
On August 19, 2017 the NWYM Board of Elders approved a minute discontinuing Reedwood Friend Church’s association with NWYM effective September 1, 2017, as authorized by NWYM Faith and Practice page 33: “In situations in which a ministry point or local church continues to deteriorate, remains ineffective or out of unity with NWYM Faith and Practice, the BoE, acting for the Yearly Meeting, may discontinue the church or the association of the church with Northwest Yearly Meeting.” With this decision, the supervisory work of the Care Committee has ended.
Pastoral Changes
Effective September 1, 2017, Jade Souza and Martha Wood will complete their ministry at RFC. They both will receive severance packages covering the last four months of 2017. We commend them both for their care and concern for those attending RFC.
Phil McLain, Clerk
NWYM Board of Elders Local church Care Committee for Reedwood Friends 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.
Excerpts from Saturday’s meeting
Jan Wood, North Seattle, opened the meeting Saturday: When we enter the door we lay down our preconceptions, convictions, planned speeches – and take on a neutral space in the spirit of Christ, to align with the heart of Jesus. It’s like shedding the garments that need to be shed, that encumber us, and take on the garment of Christ, that frees us. Whenever an organism experiences pain, the natural reaction is to resort to coping mechanisms, to change our behavior to protect itself, to protect itself from that pain ever happening again. We are being birthed out of woundedness and pain, and are vulnerable to resorting to these defenses. We need to release those we are angry at, hold in judgment, have wounded us—release them into the hands of Jesus.
During the meeting, we identified six priorities for an interim steering committee:
- Communication.
- “People work.” Jan asked Eric Muhr to elaborate on “people work.” He offered that we are usually inclined to think in terms of superstructure, rather than infrastructure. We might want to give attention to concern about an undergirding infrastructure to provide for the individuals not connected with these five churches, but who might want to be involved.
- Research into what’s been done before in similar situations, what the YM is requiring, what bylaws are needed. Retha McCutchen, NWYM Interim Superintendent, noted that we don’t need a full Faith and Practice, but merely bylaws (Roger Watson added later that we will need articles of incorporation as well).
- Identity work (who are we, what throws us together).
- Plan for ways to serve the interests of folks not affiliated with departing churches.
- [This was added later in the discussion.] Plan for alternative, parallel business meetings to be held during YM sessions in July 2017.
Wood clarified: We are pretty clear on a steering committee with a limited shelf life expiring at yearly meeting, a time frame for the steering committee to be formed, and a strong concern for a large, pained group in the middle without a departing church to affiliate with, and an identification with their pain.
Jade Souza, Reedwood: I would like for the committee to consider institutional support for meetings that are currently unclear, churches that are restructuring, or new plants or new worship groups.
We approved the following minute:
We approve the creation of an interim committee for the purpose of proposing a structure for the association of the five churches that must leave Northwest Yearly Meeting by 2018, to be comprised of two members appointed from each of these churches. It will serve as the point group for communication among the Friends coalescing around the formation of the new entity, and for communication with NWYM. The interim committee will decide on the scope and priorities of its work. We will ask the five churches leaving NWYM to name their representatives by May 21, 2017. The work and continued existence of this group will be re-evaluated at a meeting of the departing churches to be held during NWYM’s 2017 annual sessions.
Roger Watson, NWYM Director of Finance and Development, spoke to us about relevant legal and financial matters. As a NWYM staff member he has a fiduciary responsibility to us, in both practical matters (such as IRS 501(c)3 eligibility), and also matters concerning our relationship with NYWM. Transition team is working on a plan for the fair and equitable disbursement of the earnings from financial assets. The larger representation our group can achieve, the larger our share in the earnings from the financial assets. We need to show ourselves as a “going concern” here today and at least through the next year. To show good faith effort, we must show ourselves as a legal entity. This involves creating incorporation papers and bylaws. The Faith and Practice of NWYM is their bylaws. In establishing who you are, it’s important also to establish why you are, your purpose.
The next meeting will be during the 2017 NWYM sessions in July.
Click here for the complete minutes from the meeting.
Churches leaving YM take step toward incorporation
[This article was updated on April 23, to include the final, approved minute]
Just over 90 people from 17 meetings gathered at Eugene this afternoon to discern next steps for those leaving Northwest Yearly Meeting.
The group approved for a communications team to begin work directly following the meeting. That team is tasked with broad dissemination of information, increased transparency, and an infrastructure that supports multi-directional connections for the continuing work of discernment.
Jan Wood, North Seattle, clerked the meeting. “We need a comprehensive way to do communication,” she said.
“Let what we’re doing become public,” Rachel Swain Kidd, Eugene, encouraged the group. “As long as we’re part of the Northwest Yearly Meeting, what we’re doing should be posted there.”
In addition, each church leaving the yearly meeting – Camas, Eugene, Klamath Falls, North Seattle and West Hills – will name two representatives to serve on an interim committee that could begin meeting as early as May 21. The interim committee will decide the scope of its work and will serve as a place for ideas to be shared, reporting back to the next gathered meeting at annual sessions in July.
John Price, Eugene, pointed out that having an interim committee will give the yearly meeting Transition Team a group that it can begin working with.
Superintendent Retha McCutchen briefly shared that this new association does not require a Faith and Practice in order to operate. “You just need bylaws,” she said.
The importance of having bylaws and of getting incorporated, according to Roger Watson, yearly meeting director of finance and development, is that “it’s going to be a sign to Northwest Yearly Meeting as a whole and to the Administrative Council in particular that we are serious about what we are doing.”
Watson clarified that incorporating will also help the Transition Team: “One of the questions that the Transition Team is dealing with is the question of division of … earnings from some financial assets…. The larger representation we have in this group, the more share you get to have in the earnings of those financial assets.”
The following minute was approved by the group:
We approved the creation of an interim committee for the purpose of proposing a structure for the association of the five churches that must leave Northwest Yearly Meeting by 2018, to be comprised of two members appointed from each of these churches. It will serve as the point group for communication among the Friends coalescing around the formation of the new entity, and for communication with NWYM. The interim committee will decide on the scope and priorities of its work. We will ask the five churches leaving NWYM to name their representatives by May 21, 2017. The work and continued existence of this group will be re-evaluated at a meeting of the departing churches to be held during NWYM’s 2017 annual sessions.
Friends from the following meetings were present:
- Betweeners (worship group in Tualatin)
- Bridge City (North Pacific YM)
- Camas
- East Hill
- Eugene Friends Church
- Eugene Friends Meeting (North Pacific YM)
- Friends in Common
- Hillsboro
- Klamath Falls
- Newberg
- North Seattle
- North Valley
- Reedwood
- Silverton
- Spokane
- Tigard
- West Hills
The communications team includes Gil George, Rachel Hampton, Connor Magee, Thomas Magee, Eric Muhr, Kjiersten Schmidt and Lorraine Watson.
‘Quakerism should have consequences’
Nearly 100 Friends from 14 monthly meetings found unity Saturday in their commitment “to being a safe place for the LGBTQ+ community.” The Quaker gathering of worship for the conduct of business formally recognized “that it has not always been a safe place in the past.”
The minute – drafted from the floor and approved after nearly 12 minutes of discussion and edits – was a surprise to some. Just over an hour earlier, before taking a break, acting clerk David Peyton reported to the meeting his sense that there was no clarity or unity: “This meeting is saying we’re not ready. We don’t know what we want to build. Maybe we don’t want to build anything.”
But after the break, A.J. Mendoza acknowledged for the first time in the meeting that there were gender and sexual minorities in the room.
“Every LGBTQ person in this room is perfect – is not sinful.” Mendoza countered the notion some had shared that there isn’t yet unity to stay or to leave Northwest Yearly Meeting, pointing to the fact that gender and sexual minorities don’t get that choice. “To hear people talk about not wanting to move to a new home while I’m sleeping in the street is not good medicine…. I’m asking you to adopt the position of somebody who can’t go back. Quakerism should have consequences.”
Elijah Walker reminded the group that the reason for this gathering is that affirming churches “were forced out of a larger body of churches. A handful of communities said they want to be a safe space. We want to hold that leading in mind.”
After several more shared, a woman highlighted the fact that the feeling in the room changed after the break. “I grew up in church, and I’ve never heard someone declare before a body of believers that ‘God loves you’ as an LGBT person.” The woman said she’s 22 years old, and “I pray that no youth has to go 22 years before hearing in front of a body of believers that God loves them.”
Bernie Bosnjak announced during a potluck supper that Hillsboro Friends would be available for another gathering on Saturday, March 18. That weekend had been set aside for a Portland-area gathering. Bosnjak said anyone interested in helping to plan or host the gathering should contact Forrest Cammack, the clerk of that quarterly meeting.
Clyde Parker extended an invitation to a yearly-meeting-organized gathering at Eugene Friends on Saturday, April 22.
Of the four churches being removed from Northwest Yearly Meeting – Camas, Eugene and West Hills all had representatives at the meeting. A representative from Klamath Falls shared via Facebook that she was unable to make the trip up for this gathering. Friends from the following meetings were also present, although many made clear that they were present as interested individuals, not necessarily as representatives of their meetings:
- Bridge City – North Pacific Yearly Meeting
- Freedom – independent, unaffiliated
- Hillsboro
- Newberg
- North Seattle
- North Valley
- Reedwood
- Silverton
- South Salem
- Spokane
- Tigard
David Peyton clerked the meeting, and Krissi Carson served as recording clerk. Elders for the meeting were Bernie Bosnjak, Gil George, Lynn Holt, Jim Miller, Greg Morgan, Catherine Olson and Elijah Walker.
Click here for minutes from the meeting.
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