iscernment and faith continue to be key words for the work of the Traveling Ministries Committee and Program. Discernment, seeking the will of God as one considers possible action, comes into practice on many levels, and all depend on each other. The committee seeks to be faithful as it discerns policy, offers annual retreats for its volunteers and others traveling in the ministry, and holds biennial consultations with affiliated yearly meetings. The coordinator seeks to be faithful as she helps meetings discern what kind of visit might best serve their needs, and then discerns (often with the help of other seasoned Friends) who among the many TMP volunteers might have the spiritual gifts that could best speak to that need. The volunteer travelers seek to be faithful as they discern whether or not they are being led to accept a particular request to travel, and as they prepare for that travel if accepted. The meetings seek to be faithful as they continue to discern how to best support the visiting Friends and prepare their own members and attenders to be open to the Spirit during the visit.

Through God's continuing grace, the TMP, since its inception, has been blessed to be able to help arrange approximately 155 visits by 42 Friends to monthly and yearly meetings, worship groups, and individual Friends living at a distance from other Friends. These numbers do not include the Couple Enrichment Program or the Yearly Meeting Visitor Program, which also fall under the care of the TMP. The TMP has received offers to travel by 76 Friends with various gifts of the Spirit.

The TMP continues to hear from meetings seeking visits from seasoned Friends who can help them strengthen their spiritual base, find ways to share with each other their individual spiritual journeys, and grow in love and understanding of each other, Quaker spiritual tradition, and God. Most, including visits that have started as requests for a speaker, workshop, or retreat weekend, have included what some are calling a “listening ministry.” Friends with gifts of listening, eldering, and nurturing visit a meeting and speak to the questions that arise as the Spirit moves. Many visits have provided informal opportunities for the personal conversation and prayer that some call “kitchen table ministry.” Our meetings have people who are hungry for a deeper knowledge of Quaker tradition and practice (how to hold business meetings, organize First Day Schools, use Nominating Committees, etc.) and others who are seeking a more life-suffusing relationship with God within the Quaker tradition (seeking worship experiences that result in spiritual change and a deepening of their relationship with the Divine and thus their meetings and the wider world.) The volunteers of the TMP seek to meet Friends and their meetings where they are and journey with them as they seek to begin to explore their needs. Early on the committee spent time in retreat and worship seeking a working definition of “ministry.” Since that time we continue to envision ministry as words or acts of love, or simply being with another, in such a way that the presence of God is experienced as more vital, more palpably present. This is the work being done by volunteers of the TMP.

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