Comments on Can you believe?: Should all evangelical Friends be in one organizat...

Bill C: You're absolutely right. It's up to Friend...

2008-05-31T21:01:00.000+04:00

Bill C: You're absolutely right. It's up to Friends to learn what Jesus is doing and join in, rather than defend/perpetuate our own patterns. Those patterns are great when they remain linked to their original "why" but that's exactly what I fear doesn't happen.

Bill S: EFI has less paid staff but still requires funding and travel and lots of volunteer time. (And with Friends organizations in general--the less structure, the more we find decisions being made offstage by just a few people.)

Thanks for taking my comments further. I'm glad for others to continue these thoughts, because our organizations must be openly discussed and challenged (and intelligently supported when they deserve it). I personally feel a bit churlish when I criticize the very organizations that I've poured so much of my life into, and that have been so hospitable to me. So I'm never going to be part of a simplistic campaign to tear them down, but I do want to contribute to a larger discussion on their future.

Actually EFI has minimal structure outside of EFM ...

2008-05-31T06:03:00.000+04:00

Actually EFI has minimal structure outside of EFM - not even an office of its own. FUM has traditionally been the most structured of the associations, but FGC has structured up and may be a competitor for that dubious distinction today.

I'm wondering if it might actually make sense to go back to an earlier era that predated the formal associations where there were networks to work together around specific areas. There were essentially two sets of networks (I think much more developed on the Hicksite side) and it seemed to make sense to consolidate them because the sets had mostly the same membership in the different components.

I wonder if today Friends tried that approach if we wouldn't more likely see different combinations around different areas of work? It's very hard to imagine all 3 associations agreeing to that approach, but it might be an interesting thought exercise - perhaps the Superintendents and Secretaries might want to engage in such an exercise.

I wonder whether the North American component of FUM can survive in the long run, at least without really major alteration. FGC & EFI seem to be doing OK, but FUM has been struggling for a long time. It has been doing piecemeal changes in structure and program which in toto have been significant in scope, but I wonder if a more comprehensive and radical rethink is needed.

And we have to think about it at 2 levels - North American and world. A merger might make sense in some parts of the world, but in North American probably at a minimum there needs to be some other interim approach before that would happen. OTOH, neither EFI or FUM provide much in the way of services in North America today (FGC provides far more), so maybe a joint approach could fill what is somewhat of a void - but that might well be a stepping up of the project-level cooperation which there has been to some degree between the 2 for quite some time, rather than a merger per se.

Let me join you in your pessimism. The structures...

2008-05-31T01:32:00.000+04:00

Let me join you in your pessimism. The structures, whether at the FUM level for Yearly Meeting level, are not structured for mission -- they are structured for structure.
It's hard to see any way to change that other than (nonviolently) blowing them up and starting over. Or they may implode on their own.

There is good news -- Jesus is still speaking to our condition today and, in places, is leading his people himself.