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Call to Annual Session 2023: Connecting and Reconnecting: Building the Beloved Community

July 8th-11th, 2023        Monmouth, Oregon

We welcome to our Annual Session attenders of monthly meetings, preparative meetings, and worship groups; Remote Friends in our region; members of other yearly meetings; and all interested persons.  We gather to search in the Light, to find renewal, and to celebrate our joy in coming together again.  — Faith and Practice, Third edition, North Pacific Yearly Meeting

We are welcome!  What does that mean and what does that look like?

Community is not just about those closest to us, or those with whom we feel the most comfortable.  I believe that God calls us to break out of our comfort zones and build community across differences.  This means promoting a multicultural and inclusive vision for our society.  —Danielle Short 

This is another “unusual” year.  We will hold our hybrid Annual Session online and in person July 8-11, 2023 at Western Oregon University (WOU) in Monmouth, Oregon, the same physical location as last year. It will begin on the same day that Friends General Conference (FGC) concludes its Gathering in the same location.  Two other differences this year: AS will be one day shorter (3 days rather than 4), and we will begin AS midday Saturday and conclude midday Tuesday rather than beginning on Wednesday or Thursday and ending Sunday.  We learned from the difficult audiovisual experience we had last year online and in person and hope that this year’s experience will be much better for all.  Due to our shorter meeting time, we will not have a Friend-in-Residence this year, but will have more opportunity to listen to Spirit and each other in worship and in working together.  We ask each of us: “What am I bringing to contribute to this meeting?  What do I hope to receive by attending?

The FGC Gathering, rarely held in the Pacific Northwest, is a rich resource for Friends, a time for Friends of all ages from different locations to meet together, discover others with similar interests, and get to learn from others with different concerns, gifts, and experience.  Friends helping to plan NPYM’s 2023 AS do not want to discourage anyone in our yearly meeting from attending the FGC Gathering.  And we also hope that NPYM Friends will attend our own NPYM Annual Session.  Limits of time or money may affect Friends’ ability attend both. This year brings us the opportunity to welcome not only Friends from NPYM but those from other yearly meetings who have attended the FGC Gathering and choose to remain and join us as we meet for our Annual Session.

 We will each “Pay as Led,” so cost should not be a barrier to attendance.  We affirm that when we say “we” to describe our yearly meeting, “we” are younger and older Friends, Friends of all genders, Friends with all sexual orientations, Friends of color and white Friends, Friends who require a variety of kinds of accessibility.  We live in rural and urban areas, our jobs differ, and our incomes vary.  We will be attending AS for the first time, and we will have been coming for years. (And these are only some of the ways that “we” can be described!)  We get to connect and reconnect and find ways to honor and celebrate these differences.  The Youth Program provides opportunities for Younger Friends, Central Friends, and Junior Friends to attend their own programs for youth.  They will also join the Adult Friends for inter-generational activities.

We ask, “How can we get Friends to come home to NPYM Annual Session after attending the FGC Gathering?” And we ask, “What does that home mean to Friends?  Is it a beloved community?  Do we really ‘know one another in the things which are eternal’ and in the things which are daily?”  Our theme, “Connecting and Reconnecting: Building the Beloved Community”, comes from these questions.  Annual Session is where we worship together, ask questions and listen together, meet people new to us and check in with those we’ve met before, and wait for guidance from the Spirit as we discern how we are being led about concerns brought to us.  The theme describes what can happen when we spend time together, in person and virtually.  We are bringing ourselves and our gifts and challenges, recognizing that we are and can be guided by the Holy as we meet with other Friends from our yearly meeting and beyond with whom we hope to have on-going connections.

We all deserve and need a community where we are welcomed, seen, heard, and known.  Welcome to all of us who can come for any and all of our 2023 Annual Session, online and in person.

Jana Ostrom

Presiding Clerk, North Pacific Yearly Meeting