|
Friends United Meeting |
 |
Friends
United Meeting
Celebrates Double Centenary—
Double Blessing
Friends
United Meeting, an international association of Friends Meetings and Churches,
with international headquarters in Richmond, Indiana, celebrates a double
blessing in 2002 — the establishment of Five Years Meeting of Friends
(the predecessor of Friends United Meeting) and the beginning of Friends
mission work in Kenya. At a week-long celebration July 10-15 at the Kenya
College of Communications Technology in Nairobi, Kenya, Friends considered
the theme: "So now finish the work" (II Cor. 8:5-15).
"God has called FUM Friends to be a force for peace and justice in
a world of dishonesty, greed, and war," said FUM General Secretary
Retha McCutchen. "God has prepared
the harvest. Our part is to answer the call and become willing workers
around the globe."
(Photos below include scenes from the Triennial sessions in Kenya.)
At
a three-hour service of worship and celebration, Joseph
Kisia, clerk of Vihiga Yearly Meeting, reminded Friends that "Jesus
Christ who was himself rich as he was, made himself poor for our sake,
in order to make us rich by means of his poverty. We must be willing to
act. Do the work and finish it. The work is just where we are and live.
We have so many people around us who need our help e.g. the blind, the
lame, sick and the disabled. They are looking at us for help."
Kisia noted that to do the work Friends must continue the vital processes of discipleship, inspired leadership, warm fellowship, loving service, and steady spiritual growth.
"As
leaders in ministry," said Kisia, "we must be asking ourselves
questions like these:
1. Are our church members, bigger men and women, inwardly stronger than
a year ago?
2. Have their spiritual senses developed?
3. Are they stronger in faith, more radiant in hope, and warmer in love?
4. Are their feelings alert, their loins girded, their hands eager for
sacrifice and service?
5. Are our meetings for worship still mixed with meetings for business?
6. Are our meetings for worship and funerals still tiresome that we take
too long?
"Here surely Friends, is what I may call, the intensive work of the church," said Kisia in closing. "The making of men and women not after the pattern of the world, but after the pattern of Jesus Christ, who shall go forth in his power and spirit to serve the Kingdom of God. A church which will attract and gather the unbelievers to itself with our faith, hope and love built on the solid rock, we can build the church we need for the future."
In the Johnson
Lecture, FUM Director of North American Ministries Ben Richmond addressed
the work of evangelism:
"In the work of evangelism, Friends have always known that God has
gone ahead of us. The promises of the New Covenant are unconditional.
God has said, 'I will write my law on their hearts.' 'Everyone
will know me.' There is no one whom we can encounter in whom God has not
already placed his witness.... Our task, as ministers of the New Covenant,
is to reach to that witness that God has already placed within them. The
wonderful thing is that this can only be accomplished by the Spirit of
Christ that is already at work within us...."
Referring to Acts 2:16b-18, Ben Richmond noted that:
"In this sense, Friends are certainly a Pentecostal church. We are
quiet — because we don't want to drown out the quiet whisper of the
inward voice of God — but we are utterly dependent on the pouring
out of the Holy Spirit....
"Spiritual baptism means to be willing to give up our own rebellious wills in preference for the leading of God.... To yield our rebellious will to God is the way of the cross. As we learn to listen to Christ, the living Word, God beckons us beyond the cross to the resurrection and eternal life."
"This is the gift we have for the world. So, now let us finish the work."
George Kinoti, Executive Director of the African Institute at the University of Nairobi, also spoke to the theme of the conference. He spoke to the four lessons we can learn from Paul's exhortation to the Christians in Corinth to keep making their contributions to the poor in Jerusalem.
In Bible study sessions, Colin South,
Director of the Ramallah Friends Schools, Oliver
Kisaka of African Quaker Vision, and Evilyn
Gonzalez Ramirez of Cuba Yearly Meeting spoke powerfully of how their
institutions witness to the love of Christ in the midst of oppression,
anger, and poverty.
In its July 14, 2002 Triennial business
session, Friends approved
a Minute from
the Interest Group on the Middle East.
In
1902, eleven Friends yearly meetings (regional associations) organized
Five Years Meeting to "strengthen their joint participation in Christian
work." Today, Friends United Meeting, with headquarters in Richmond,
Indiana, includes 26 yearly meetings (regional associations) of Friends
— 11 in North America, 13 in East Africa, and 2 in the Caribbean
— along with several smaller groups, local meetings (churches) and
affiliated organizations.
Also,
in 1902, Friends missionaries Willis Hotchkiss, Arthur Chilson and Edgar
T. Hole traveled to Kenya. After weeks of looking for the right place
to settle down, Hotchkiss and Hole succumbed to malaria and were too ill
to travel. Arthur Chilson realized that he must find a place as quickly
as possible and tramped about, alone, many miles to find it. Then he climbed
a tree from which he saw a river and a grassy slope: a perfect place to
pitch their tents. Thus began an effort that today encompasses thirteen
yearly meetings and has reached into four other East African countries.
The extent to which the message of Jesus Christ is being spread in East
Africa is beyond calculation, though recent numbers are estimated at 100,000
East African Friends.
