How FGC's Traveling Ministries Program Can Serve Your Meeting
Does
your meeting long to deepen its life in the Spirit and ground itself more
fully in Friends' faith and practice? The Traveling Ministries Program (TMP)
of Friends General Conference was created to help encourage Spirit-led ministry
and to arrange for travel by seasoned Friends. The TMP can help provide programs
fostering spiritual awareness and growth to Friends and meetings. The staff
of the TMP can help meetings find seasoned Friends with spiritual gifts who
will visit them to address specific concerns that have arisen, or simply for
the richness of worshipping and talking together.
Visiting Friends might serve your meeting by:
§ Listening
§ Teaching
§ Mediating
§ Assisting with discernment
§ Working with youth
§ Modeling Quaker practice
Seasoned Friends might visit for a period of one to several days, depending on the needs of the meeting and the availability of the traveling Friend.
How to Request a Visit
Meetings can arrange for visits from seasoned Friends through the TMP coordinator. She can talk with an appointed representative about the meeting's interest in arranging for a visit and help discern what kind of visitor might best serve the meeting. Meetings requesting visits are asked to provide transportation and hospitality for their guests. If financing is an obstacle, FGC has a modest budget to assist meetings with travel costs. Meetings should make their needs known so the TMP coordinator can work with them in raising and/or securing financial assistance. It is helpful to have as much as three to six months lead time when requesting a visit. This allows a visitor time to prepare and make necessary arrangements. Meetings also need the time to prepare for the arrival of their guests.
After the visit the TMP coordinator, or a member of the Traveling Ministries Committee, will follow up with both the traveling Friend and the meeting receiving the visit to make sure all have a chance to give feedback concerning their experience together.
Contact the Traveling Ministries Program
§ To learn more about the Traveling Ministries Program . . .
§ to request a visit from a seasoned Friend . . .
§ or to volunteer to travel as a seasoned Friend . . .
