Hello my name is Joshua Ponter. I am a member of Haddonfield Monthly Meeting in South Jersey’s Philadelphia area. I have embarked on a year-long mission to travel around the country collecting stories about the founding of different meetings and looking at the way we practice Quakerism today. I will be blogging about my travels on the PYM website. Find my latest entry below. Please email me at JPonter1@gmail.com if there is anyone from your meeting who would like to sit down with me and speak to some of your history — or if you would like more information on me or my project . Thank you! [Read more…] about Laramie: Travels with Josh
Religious Education
Iowa: Travels with Josh
Hello my name is Joshua Ponter. I am a member of Haddonfield Monthly Meeting in South Jersey’s Philadelphia area. I have embarked on a year-long mission to travel around the country collecting stories about the founding of different meetings and looking at the way we practice Quakerism today. I will be blogging about my travels on the PYM website. Find my latest entry below. Please email me at JPonter1@gmail.com if there is anyone from your meeting who would like to sit down with me and speak to some of your history — or if you would like more information on me or my project . Thank you! [Read more…] about Iowa: Travels with Josh
Travels with Josh: Salt Lake City
Hello my name is Joshua Ponter. I am a member of Haddonfield Monthly Meeting in South Jersey’s Philadelphia area. I have embarked on a year-long mission to travel around the country collecting stories about the founding of different meetings and looking at the way we practice Quakerism today. I will be blogging about my travels on the PYM website. Find my latest entry below. Please email me at JPonter1@gmail.com if there is anyone from your meeting who would like to sit down with me and speak to some of your history — or if you would like more information on me or my project . Thank you! [Read more…] about Travels with Josh: Salt Lake City
God Thing: Travels with Josh
Hello my name is Joshua Ponter. I am a member of Haddonfield Monthly Meeting in South Jersey’s Philadelphia area. I have embarked on a year-long mission to travel around the country collecting stories about the founding of different meetings and looking at the way we practice Quakerism today. I will be blogging about my travels on the PYM website. Find my latest entry below. Please email me at JPonter1@gmail.com if there is anyone from your meeting who would like to sit down with me and speak to some of your history — or if you would like more information on me or my project . Thank you! [Read more…] about God Thing: Travels with Josh
God Takes Me Where I’m Supposed to Be: Travels with Josh
Hello my name is Joshua Ponter. I am a member of Haddonfield Monthly Meeting in South Jersey’s Philadelphia area. I have embarked on a year-long mission to travel around the country collecting stories about the founding of different meetings and looking at the way we practice Quakerism today. I will be blogging about my travels on the PYM website. Find my latest entry below. Please email me at JPonter1@gmail.com if there is anyone from your meeting who would like to sit down with me and speak to some of your history — or if you would like more information on me or my project . Thank you! [Read more…] about God Takes Me Where I’m Supposed to Be: Travels with Josh
2019 Annual Sessions – Children’s Epistle
To Friends Everywhere,
We need to raise our voices when things are not right.
You have to know when things are not right..
This week Ollie tried to chase a chicken at Snipes Farm.
We watched Mulan for movie night.
We went to game night with Middle School Friends.
We played on a slip and slide, and always have friendship.
We also took pictures of our week, and here they are.
In Peace,
PYM Children
PS – It was also really fun break dancing with pushed learning!
(Thank Edy and Megan!)
2019 Annual Sessions – Middle School Friends Epistle
ERICA: Dear Friends Everywhere, We are the Middle School Friends of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.
We gathered at The College of New Jersey in Ewing, New Jersey from July 24th to July 28th, 2019 for Annual Sessions. We grew as a community and expanded our knowledge by learning about the LGBTQIA+ and people of color communities. We learned about microaggressions and how to work as a community by talking about our disagreements and vulnerabilities with Pushed Learning Media.
[Read more…] about 2019 Annual Sessions – Middle School Friends Epistle
2019 Annual Sessions – Young Friends Epistle
Dear Friends, everywhere,
We the Young Friends of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting gathered together at The College of New Jersey located in Ewing, New Jersey from Wednesday, July 24the , through Sunday, July 28the , focusing on this year’s theme; “How do we center ourselves in trust and love?”
Throughout the week, the Young Friends were able to build a more unified and trusting group through a variety of activities. We started our week with a multi-generational gathering where we were able to connect with Friends on a more spiritual level through storytelling. In this activity, we had community members tell a spiritual story, that all Friends present appreciated. Following this, the Young Friends came together to discuss guidelines for this gathering that promoted a safe and loving environment for all Friends.
[Read more…] about 2019 Annual Sessions – Young Friends Epistle
Finding Faith, Practice, and Joy in Youth Programs at Sessions
By Melinda Wenner Bradley, Youth Religious Life Coordinator
What does the intersection of intention and action look like among Friends? The programs planned for children, youth, and families at Annual Sessions, and our practices in the Quaker community of PYM Youth Programs, are among the possibilities!
However you attend Sessions — commuting or in residence, with a group of friends and family or on your own — the Youth Programs staff hope that you will leave this week with a sense of the participatory joy we feel in our work, and with an awareness that PYM youth return home with new tools, evolving questions, and renewed support for exploring faith and practice in their lives.
At our staff retreat last May, the Youth Programs team discerned and named five themes that feel vital both to guiding our planning for events, and to sharing spiritual practice tools we hope young Friends (and friends of Friends) will take into the world after participating in our programs.
As we finalized our planning for Annual Sessions, I was delighted (but not surprised) to find that what we had identified in our visioning is happening now in “real time” together in community. What’s shared here isn’t an all-inclusive list of what’s happening this week, but snapshots of where you might see our intention in action:
- Quaker Community: Youth meeting for business is clerked by youth; at Sessions this includes discernment about writing epistles and planning for events in the year ahead.
- Creative Spirituality: Spirit moves among us throughout Sessions, including in worship sharing groups and during our Sunday morning “worship experiment,” that gathers all youth for a final community worship.
- Building Relationships: This is a central part of our Game Night, Talent Show, and the Family Neighborhood. Field trips to Snipes Farm and Mercer Meadows will extend community building during off campus programs, too.
- Play and Joy: Everyone participates in this one throughout the week! We especially look forward to the Giant UNbirthday party, and our Slip and Slide play with PYM’s inflatable unicorn, Frank.
- Stretch and Surrender: We’ll experience this in planned workshops with special guest Pushed Learning & Media, and our Artist in Residence Eric Berdis, and during all-ages worship with the body.
We hope Friends will also explore these five areas of focus at home in your local meeting communities in the coming year! They are applicable both in plans for youth programming and in how we move the intention to be a multigenerational faith community into action and practice. Interested in support for how to do this? Be in touch and let’s collaborate!
Our community of children, youth, and families this week is grounded by the amazing creativity, planning, and facilitation of the Annual Sessions Youth Team: Elizabeth Croce, Virginia DeWees, Colleen Hayes, Kimani Keaton, and Aeryn Luminkith. Stop them sometime and share a joyful, “thank you!”
Support Families with Young Children at Annual Sessions
Do you carry a concern for the needs of parents with young children?
Do you yearn for more support for families to be in Quaker spaces?
Are you led to support families with young children attending Sessions?
Register to stay in the Family Neighborhood!
Volunteer to help set-up and support this space for Families!
The Family Neighborhood is a residential and social area at Annual Sessions designed to help meet the particular needs of families with children. Children at Annual Sessions participate in morning and evening program in the Fry group (child care for infants to age 4) and the K-5 Fox and Fisher groups. This year, the Family Neighborhood will be housed in a new space, Hausdoerffer Hall, which we’re affectionately calling, “Haus Home.” The first-floor lounge will be “home base” for Families at Sessions. The dormitory includes suites of rooms on the first floor that sleep up to six, with a bathroom and small kitchen in the suite. The first floor also has free laundry.
Through a mixture of structured opportunities and informal connection, the Family Neighborhood creates a warm space for caregivers and their families to form peer circles and establish mutually supportive relationships. There will be a Family Picnic and Meetup on the patio and backyard of “Haus Home” on Friday evening, July 26, for Families and Youth Program participants. Throughout Sessions, the Family Neighborhood lounge will be a place to meet, relax, play, and connect with friends. Afternoons at Sessions this year are designed to be more open — with options in community (workshops, worship sharing) and also relaxation and self-care (naps!). During the afternoon time, children and families will find art supplies, books, a bin of Legos in the lounge — and water play outside — for creative play and a space to “chill out” together with adult supervision.
When my children were small (they are now in MSF and Young Friends), we started the Family Neighborhood to support one another and be in community at Sessions. (It’s also a great example of sharing among Friends — the idea is adapted from what New England YM does at their Sessions.) Families could leave notes for each other and plan to meet for meals. Parents could share kid watching and be able to attend a workshop (or take a nap!). We would put our kids to bed at night and spend time talking, laughing, gathering in a wider Quaker family community than many of us experience in our local meetings. Those friendships are still a core of my experience in PYM.
We are seeking Friends who are led to help make the Family Neighborhood a safe, welcoming & nurturing space. If you are interested in contributing to our community at Annual Sessions in this way, please contact me! mwennerbradley@pym.org and 215-241-7171
Melinda Wenner Bradley, Youth Religious Life Coordinator