Queries and Resources for a Year of Discernment

Queries

Pacific Yearly Meeting

Year of Discernment . 2006-2007

Ministry and Oversight Committee for Pacific Yearly Meeting invites Monthly Meetings, Yearly Meeting Committees, and the Yearly Meeting as a whole, to engage in a discernment process to determine .right order. for the Yearly Meeting and for our lives as Friends. Some see this as a Sabbath or Jubilee year where we step back and re-order our priorities so that we are in right relationship to Spirit. Ministry and Oversight welcomes your comments and learnings as you experiment with these queries. Send them to lmagnani@juno.com.

1. Sabbath involves both a saying .no. and a saying .yes.. (It does not mean just resting). What must we stop doing in order to hear God.s word for us?

How can we step back in order to renew our covenant relationship with God?

2. Are there aspects of our processes, habits or organization that enslave us?

What structures or organization does the Monthly or Yearly Meeting need to lay the ground work for Spirit?

3. What disciplines or preparations do I need to establish in order to engage in discernment?

Can I trust Spirit to carry me when I stop or slow my outward activities?

4. Sabbath can also be seen as a radical challenge to the prevailing over-achieving, consumer culture. What are we, in Pacific Yearly Meeting , or in our Monthly Meetings, called to do as people living in that life and power that is one with the earth and takes away the occasion of all wars and strife?

Resources for the Discernment Process

Testament of Devotion, Thomas Kelly . especially the chapter on simplifying our lives.

Friends Bulletin, November 2006 . articles by Tony Prete on Sabbath and Joe Franko, clerk of PYM.

Friends Journal, October 2006, an issue of challenging articles are where Friends are being called.

Widening Circles of Friends, concentric circle exercises by Jane Peers, La Jolla Meeting. Contact her at : (760) 753-6146, 808 Melba Rd., Encinitas, CA 92024-3826