The
Eleventh State of the Church Report for the Year 2015
Presented at Annual Meeting on January 24,
2016
“Though
we are little, the Lord shall make us mighty.
Though
we are weak, the Lord shall make us strong.
Though
we are foolish, the Lord shall give us wisdom.
Though
we struggle, the Lord, through us, shall gain victory.”
Ministry
brought by T. Vail Palmer, December 2012
Greetings to
Friends Everywhere:
Blessings of
Peace, Joy, Love and Light to you, in Christ Jesus.
We are a small, hopeful
group of people—and we reach out to God, each other and the wider world. In spite of our varied life circumstances, we
know that we are incredibly and deeply blessed. We have had a front row seat to
miracles, healing, changes and blessed ministry in our community. We witness
and walk with those in our community who are deeply hurt, yet dedicate
themselves to their own healing, and to the healing of their community. We
share our sorrows as well as our joys. We are not in total agreement about
political issues or even theological issues.
But we do sense and know the presence of the Holy One in our
midst—working on us, in us, for us as individuals and community.
We are a blessed
community, and part of the blessing we experience on a regular basis is that we
get to witness and welcome guests and visitors who have been harmed by church, families,
the bible, or society’s treatment of them because of their differences. If one
looks at Freedom Friends Church from the outside—they may not see the diversity
that is really here. This community of wounded warriors welcomes all visitors
and sojourners as the blessing and light that they are. We celebrate every bit
of diversity—that either comes to us or that we meet in our wider community.
Daily we try to be grateful, to share our concerns and to listen for the Light,
the Spirit that grounds, heals, and tends our souls, minds and bodies. We are
not perfect. We are not perfect at being grateful humans; part of our soul’s
work, for each of us—is to be grateful, to find things, circumstances and
people for which to be thankful. This includes the stranger, the sojourner and
the friend of a friend who can’t believe that a community such as this exists.
When Freedom Friends began, eleven+ years ago,
we were seen as going “outside of the fold” ; a perception by many who were not
engaged with our community We were blessed and affirmed by our monthly meeting
elders (Reedwood, NWYM) even though they were not yet ready to partner with us.
We looked for another yearly meeting or larger body of Friends with which to
affiliate or partner but they were also not ready for various reasons. Most
often we were perceived us as dangerous and as fracturing the Quaker family
tree.
What is true for
us is that we do not feel “outside of the fold”. We simply feel we are doing and being the
community we are called to be. We have
many F/friends who stay in contact with us, many who are affiliated with other
Quaker organizations, some who are not. A
variety of Quaker groups continue to call on members of FFC to provide
spiritual resources. We feel loved , supported and valued. This is a part of the blessing that we
continue to experience; we do not feel alone or “outside of the fold”. We are
not outside. We are not alone. We are firmly in the hand of God, though we are
small, weak, and foolish—but God continues to bless, strengthen and teach us in
this place.
We continue to
take every opportunity to educate ourselves and each other about Quakerism and
business practice. We have been experimenting with Quakerism 101 class
online—partially on Facebook, and partially on an FFC blog. While the participation has been low, the
framework for further online education has been set up, which should decrease
future labor demand for Q101 and other classes we may want to share.
We represent 22
households, 33 regular attenders, of which 23 are members, 4 are recorded
ministers, and ALL are ministers. We are a small community. We continue to
grow—in love, nurture, truth, and we continue to stretch the tiny resources we
have. Our Faith and Practice is now 7+
years old. It continues to be the ground we live on in our community life. We
continue to get requests for the Faith & Practice from far and near. We
have been in our current location 9 years. This is the literal ground that we
gather to worship upon. Both our Faith & Practice and our meeting house have
been deep blessings to us and part of the fabric that connects and supports us.
We joyously welcomed 2 new members and various attenders this year.
These are some of
the ways in which we reach out to and minister in the wider world:
1.
Stamp
Out Injustice: we collect used postage stamps and send them to be sold
To collectors and the funds then support many Quaker-friendly causes.
2.
Change
the World: we collect our loose change to help change others’ lives. Our
Most recent collection is for a local homeless man named David who
lives behind Wal-Mart.
3.
Food
Collection for Marion Polk Food Share.
4.
Box Tops
for Education.
5.
Allies
for Equality: a local community organization working for justice for Lesbian,
Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Queer (LGBTIQ) persons.
6.
Collecting
clothing, blankets, and plastic grocery bags for Salem Sleeping Bag Project.
7.
Tithe
your Tampons- collection of personal care items for homeless and low-income
students.
8.
Collecting
personal care items and clothing for the local Homeless Outreach and Advocacy Project
(HOAP).
A New Ministry
this year:
Worship through art group. (MAG): a time of gathering to work on
projects, arts, crafts, writing, etc. and to visit with one another. This has
been a blessing to FFC community as well as the Salem community. We hope to
expand this project further in the coming year—by publicly exhibiting some of the
work that is done.
We find many
opportunities for ministry both inside and outside of our meeting. We also find
that we have limited resources for doing the work that is before us. Because of this, we continue to simplify our business
process and use the energy we have to best effect.
1.
While we
do not recommend it, we currently have a clerk/pastor. This coming year we will
have a clerk in training—and we are totally jazzed about this!
2.
Instead of the labor intensive process of posting
our business meeting minutes online, we have changed to minute-taking
(hand-written), corrections and approval on day of business meeting. After
which, we immediately enter the handwritten minutes into the public minutes
book at the meeting house.
3.
We
further simplified by going to an every other month business meeting cycle. This
seems to be working quite well for us—giving our officers a bit of time to
breathe. In the past year we seem to have been able to do the business needing
to be done on this schedule, with only one called and very short business
meeting.
Karen Mitchell
has been helping to lead worship music. This has been a great help, and has
brought refreshment to our worship practice.
Judy M and Peggy Morrison have served us well as co-treasurers. Kimberly
Bays has been faithful to her duties as recording clerk. Alivia Biko has served
as both Pastor and Presiding Clerk. We are very grateful for their service, as
well as for the ministry that each member and attender does on a daily basis.
We continue to
support and encourage participation in NW Convergent Friends and the Pacific
Northwest Quaker Women’s Theology Conference (PNWQWTC). Both Freedom Friends
and Convergent Friends have been deeply influenced and encouraged by the work
of the Quaker Women’s Theology Conference and by Multwood, the group of women
that started the theology conference. We continue to be grateful for the
challenging work to reach across divides (whether theological, biological, political,
etc.) ; Divides between us as humans, as Quakers, and as spiritual beings. We
celebrate and support the ongoing work of each of these efforts. In August, Phil Baisley from Indiana, joined
us for worship, and also interviewed some members of FFC and our pastor. His
research regards bi-vocational ministry. We were blessed by his visit and we
look forward to reading more about his research results.
The AA group that
we host in our building has been incredibly loving to us this year. They
purchased a new front door rug, cleaned all our carpets, and have taken over
cleaning the meeting room, kitchen and bathrooms. It has blessed us tremendously as we have had
limited energy to do these basic and much needed chores. We appreciate their
support so very much.
For the first
time in 11 years, we ended the year with a small positive bank balance and 100%
of the income for the year came from Freedom Friends Members.
“Though
we are little, the Lord shall make us mighty.
Though
we are weak, the Lord shall make us strong.
Though
we are foolish, the Lord shall give us wisdom.
Though
we struggle, the Lord, through us, shall gain victory.”
Ministry
brought by T. Vail Palmer, December 2012
We are little—and
God has multiplied our reach and our strength as a community. We are weak, and
daily the Lord strengthens us. We are foolish, and we have been promised that
the Lord shall give us wisdom—we hope and pray this is so. At present we believe that simplifying our
community life has helped to extend our fruitfulness. We do struggle,
individually, communally; we still struggle to do justice, to love, and show
mercy. Though we are little, weak, foolish, struggling, we continue to partner
with those who need company on their journeys. We continue to be passionately
Quaker, passionately Christ-centered, and passionately inclusive—this is the
call we, Freedom Friends, have heard from our beginning.
We value all
encouragement and support from the wider world of Quakers, and beyond. We encourage and welcome your correspondence,
visits and prayers. Please pray for us that we will be faithful to the call we
have received, and continue to see the promises of God come to fruition.
In the hope and
power of the present Christ,
Alivia Bright-Maple
Biko, pastor
Approved for
publication by Freedom Friends on January 24, 2016
