Message from the General Secretary
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Dear Friends: I am moved to say once again, please come! Please come to our Yearly Meeting which begins Wednesday evening, July 24. You will be missed if you're not with us. Come because you're a member of the community and the experience of community for everyone is enhanced when more of us show up. Come because yearly meeting is an opportunity for our community to "cross-pollinate," to enrich our own faith journeys with the experiences of others with whom we are not in regular communion. Come because our understanding and experience of God is nurtured and enlarged in community. Come because of the optimistic energy generated by our young Friends. Come because it's a meaningful experience to engage in corporate discernment with a larger body of Friends. Come because of the opportunity to be challenged, to step outside of our comfort zones. Come because you will be nourished spiritually. Come because it's fun. Come because I'll be there and I'd like to say hello. I hope to see next week at Annual Sessions! 
Arthur M. LarrabeeGeneral Secretary Philadelphia Yearly Meeting
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Are You Joining Your Friends Next Week?
Annual Sessions 2013
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Will you be joining everyone else who is coming to PYM Annual Sessions next week?
Annual Sessions is where we get to know ourselves as a whole community. We worship together, practice spirit-led discernment in Meetings for Business, "re-create" in age specific and multi-generational programs and enjoy fellowship in quiet times.
This year's theme is "Gathering Together our Past, Our Presence, and our Future." What will we discover this year? Come and find out! Participate in worship, discernment and fellowship! Friends are coming from all over the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting area.
We look forward to seeing you at this year's Annual Sessions!
Last-minute questions about Annual Sessions should be directed to Tricia Coscia, Sessions Coordinator, at sessions@pym.org or 215-241-7238. For more information about Annual Sessions, see the PYM Website. NOTE: Onsite day-registration is available for adults at Annual Sessions starting Wednesday July 24. There are no program fees. Simply come to the registration desk to register. We welcome day attenders! A limited number of meal tickets are still available for purchase but housing is sold out.
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Preliminary Agenda & Advance Documents
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The Agenda Planning Committee is pleased to announce the release of a preliminary agenda for this year's Annual Sessions Business Sessions.
This year we will again utilize an Open Agenda. While recognizing that there will be specific matters to be considered, our business will be addressed as the Spirit so leads us, allowing us to be faithful to the needs of the body, responsive to how we are being led and respectful of the time and effort needed to bring forth well-seasoned business.
This year's preliminary list of agenda items is available now on the PYM website.
Many Advance Documents and Reports are available now. Please check back periodically, as more items will be added as we approach the opening of Annual Sessions on July 24.
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Long Range Planning
Discussion & Discernment at Annual Sessions
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At this year's Annual Sessions the Long Range Planning Group will bring preliminary results of what we have been hearing as Friends' concerns and hopes for our corporate life as Quakers of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.
The dozen Friends appointed to prepare a written plan have been learning the discipline of considering what is most longed for, what is feasible given our human and financial resources, what we need right away and what we could expect to accomplish within the next few years.
We have listened to what planners call "Big Questions" and we invite you to contemplate your responses to some of them whether or not you will be at Annual Sessions: - How committed am I as a Friend, and how committed is my Monthly Meeting:
- to deepening spiritual life?
- to creating a vital, growing, diverse, multigenerational community?
- to nurturing gifts including leadership and witness?
- Could our yearly meeting's structure be more simple, agile, and better understood?
- What central work needs to be done by Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, what is the work of our local meetings, and how may our interaction be improved?
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New Directory
PYM Spiritual Nurturers & Directors
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Spiritual Nurturers and Directors are those who have the gift to listen to the story of an individual's search, ask useful questions, encourage the other to go deeper, and hold that person in the Light and in Love.
The Spiritual Formation Working Group is pleased to share the new PYM Directory of Spiritual Nurturers & Directors.
Spiritual Nurturers and Directors are known to have a regular prayer life, cultivate their own spiritual growth, especially through meeting with a nurturer/director or other spiritual guide themselves. They have undergone training and are certified as a Spiritual Director in a recognized program. Nurturers in the Directory have a spiritual support committee and a Minute from the Worship and Ministry Committee or the Clerk of their monthly meeting endorsing their ministry. Find out more about Spiritual Nurturers and Directors.
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PYM Meeting on Worship & Ministry
Facilitating Group Volunteers are Needed
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Meeting on Worship and Ministry is the body within PYM specifically charged with the nurture of worship, ministry, and the spiritual life of the Yearly Meeting. Since 2008, PYM Friends have gathered twice each year to worship and share in a Meeting on Worship and Ministry. This semiannual gathering to share our joys and concerns relating to worship and ministry is the successor to a continuous tradition of PYM Meetings for this purpose going back a century or more. The Spirit of Worship at these gatherings has lifted us up and inspired us to live our faith. The Meeting on Worship & Ministry invites Friends called to strengthen the life of the Spirit in our yearly meeting to join the facilitating group. Learn more about the Meeting on Worship & Ministry and how you can help nourish worship in our yearly meeting. |
| Calling Quaker Writers
PYM Today - Fall 2013
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We have begun planning the Fall 2013 edition of PYM Today. The focus of this issue will be Contemporary Quaker Faith and Spirituality.We are seeking Friendly authors interested in submitting articles about modern Quaker spirituality. What is the nature of your inner light? Where are you on your spiritual quest? Where are you headed? What is the nature of your faith? Are you Christ-centric, universalist, non-theist or something else? These are just suggestions, and we welcome all views. Our goal is to help Friends explore the nature of our faith and spirituality and in the process call others to do likewise. We hope to convey the richness of the divine light to the many seekers who have not yet discovered Quakerism. We prefer articles that have a tone of discovery and revelation, focused on the nature of the author's personal faith and spirituality.
If you are interested in sharing aspects of your faith and spiritual path by contributing an article, find out more by contacting us at info@pym.org
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Upcoming Events
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| Thank you for reading! |
PYM Today Online is published monthly to help strengthen our Philadelphia Yearly Meeting faith community through communication, connections and relationships.
We hope you found this edition of PYM Today Online informative and engaging. Please consider forwarding this newsletter to friends and family. Everyone is welcome to their own personal subscription - and it's free! Just click the Forward to a Friend button in the column to the right of this message.
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Worship
at
Annual Sessions
July 24-28, 2013
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Gathering for worship with one another is one of the richest spiritual experiences we might participate in. At Annual Sessions we emphasize the importance of corporate worship, small group worship and individual worship as a way to nurture our faith and each other in spiritual community. Opening Worship Early Morning Worship Daily Worship Sharing Daily Extended Worship Opening Meetings for Business All Sessions Vespers Daily
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Featured Resource
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Can You Identify
The Quaker?  Explore Introducing
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