27Wishes Chad on the Convergent Gathering

An interview with Chad Stephenson of 27Wishes on his impressions of the "Reclaiming Primitive Quakerism for the 21st Century" retreat at Ben Lomond Conference Center in California.

It's been a smorgasbord of Quakers. One thing that I've liked about the Convergent Friends idea is that I get to come to one location and meeting Quakers of all stripes and all different backgrounds that normally I would have to either travel around, read online, or somehow come into contact with. I really like the idea of being able to have meals, have conversations, and draw from other Quaker backgrounds in one place.

One of the things I noticed about this particular gathering is that it really has a variety of age groups and that's one of the things I've found really refreshing: you hear a lot of different generations of Quakers speaking about a hunger for action, a greater thirst for deepening spiritual connections with the Bible. There are various voices at the table.

It's striking to me that I've never heard them all speaking together because I believe at my own meeting we don't have that range or that spread even though it seems that we should or could. When I come here, we have geographical, regional discussions from all around the country, it's hard to capture.

I haven't been to PYM [Pacific Yearly Meeting) or the very large gatherings like FGC, so this as introduction to a wider range of Quaker. It's the largest Friends meeting I've been to that encompasses the most types of Quakers and it's enlightening.

QuakerQuaker Profile: Chad
Twitter: chadstep
Blog: http://27wishes.wordpress.com

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Tags: convergent, quaker, quaker.reclaiming2009
Views: 481
Location: ben lomond, california, us

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