Putney Friends Meeting

July 19 9:40 – Visit with Susan Davies

My visit is a part of a larger YM outreach effort to strengthen the bonds between monthly meetings and the yearly meeting.  My meeting is Vassalboro MM, and I am a member of Permanent Board (PB).  PB has initiated its own outreach effort to provide opportunities for monthly meeting Friends to ask questions, and to become familiar with the year-round work of PB and the YM as a whole.  Permanent Board is the “continuing body” of New England Yearly Meeting, when the YM is not “in session” ie, the August YM gathering.  I hope and expect to travel with a Friend from the Finance Committee who will be able to speak knowledgably about the relationship between YM ministries and the financial health of the yearly meeting.  Some of the yearly meetings ministries include our youth programs, Friends Camp, supporting Friends who are called to travel in the ministry, supporting YM committees such as Faith and Practice Revision Committee, Racial, Social and Economic Justice Committee, Earthcare Ministry Committee, NEYM Ministry and Counsel Committee, the NEYM Structural Review Committee, etc.  NEYM also has the challenge and opportunity to discern how the Spirit is leading us to be in right relationship and stewardship to the $1.1 million Legacy Gift from the sale of the New England Friends Home.

All of these involvements need the engagement of Friends in our monthly meetings to faithfully blossom and bear ‘the fruits of the Spirit’ and to keep the spiritual life-blood circulating between the monthly meetings and their yearly meeting.