LEYM Queries & Advices
Annual Queries
Each year LEYM’s Ministry and Nurture Committee prepares a set of queries and readings for the consideration of meetings. The Ministry and Nurture Committee invites each meeting to consider the queries and to develop a written response that describes the insights arrived at during its consideration. Meetings are requested to send this to the clerk of the Ministry and Nurture Committee. The Ministry and Nurture Committee reviews meetings’ responses during committee time at Representative Meeting in the spring.
2021 Query
The 2021 LEYM Query comes from a careful reading of last year’s State of the Meeting reports along with attentive listening to the interests and concerns of Friends in various gatherings within LEYM. There is a hunger for more connection to Spirit, to know one another on a deeper level, and to put faith into action.
Ministry and Nurture looks forward to receiving a report on your Worship Sharing or discussion on these two simple questions which are designed to respond first as an individual and second as a collective meeting.
Reports are due by January 15, 2022 and may be emailed to Flo Friender at quakerflo@comcast.net
Gratefully submitted by
M&N members: Shelley Kotz, Rebecca Morehouse, Lisa Klopfer, Linda Mills, David Snyder, Maryann Concannon, Flo Friender
- 2021 LEYM Query:
- In what ways do I experience a sense of spirit in my life?
- What is the role of the meeting in nourishing depth of spirit among us?
Quotes to supplement the LEYM 2021 Query
“If you belong to the population of the Kingdom of God, you are a practitioner because you are producing understanding and love in your daily life. That makes the Kingdom of God continue to be the Kingdom of God. If the population of the Kingdom does not practice understanding and love, they lose the Kingdom in two seconds because the essence of the Kingdom is understanding and love.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh 31 December 2005, Lower Hamlet, Plum Village
“Do we live our lives in the awareness of the presence of God so that all things take their rightful place?”
— Pacific Yearly Meeting Quaker Faith and Spiritual Practice First query in the section on Simplicity
“We have seen that, in its early years, the Quaker movement was a utopian community that vigorously challenged the dominant norms and values of English society. A glimpse of heaven transformed their lives, and brought them into the vanguard of the Lamb’s War. They found themselves caught up in a spiritual struggle to establish heaven on earth.”
— Stuart Masters From the article: The First Quaker Communities Friends Journal 06-07/2021
2020 Query
We didn’t write our own query this year. Instead we are asking that Friends use the queries that are included in the epistle that the Friends of Color of Friends General Conference sent out at the end of their pre-Gathering meeting this summer. The epistle may be found on the FGC website.
Near the end of the epistle are six queries that the FGC Friends of Color ask all Quakers to consider. Ministry and Nurture is asking that meetings and worship groups read the epistle before meeting to discuss the queries. You can approach the queries as you wish. Some may choose to concentrate on one or two of the questions; others may choose to discuss all of them.
2019 Query
The world we live in can leave many of us with broken hearts. We turn to one another in our meetings, in worship and in friendship. Let us rest in the Light. What are we finding there?
2019 Query with supporting quotes (PDF)
Book of Advices & Queries
A set of advices and queries drawn up by an ad hoc committee was approved by the yearly meeting in session in July of 2012. It contains a total of 66 queries organized into 16 sections. It also has information on the history and current uses of advices and queries, an overview of the process by which this set was arrived at, and considerations for revising the set in the future. Printed booklets are available from the yearly meeting. The file here is for viewing on a computer.
