07/29/2020 UPDATE:
Here is the link to the recording of the Zoom Representative Gathering from Mid-America Yearly Meeting’s Ministry Conference: Representative Session (Saturday afternoon, July 25) It includes the reading of University Friends’ letter and Diana Hoover’s prayer at our parting from MAYM.
June 11, 2020
Dear Friends:
We are writing to let you know that the status of University Friends Church in relation to Evangelical Friends Church – Mid-America Yearly Meeting (EFC-MAYM) has changed. As of July 25, 2020, we will no longer be affiliated with Mid-America Yearly Meeting.
We also want to provide some context for that change, beginning with a look at our history.
Kansas (now EFC-MA) Yearly Meeting was set off from Indiana Yearly Meeting in 1872, and Kansas Yearly Meeting was a part of Five Years Meeting when the latter organization was formed in 1902. Nebraska Yearly Meeting was established in 1908, also part of Five Years Meeting. In 1937, Kansas Yearly Meeting left Five Years Meeting and later became part of what is now Evangelical Friends Church International. Nebraska (now Great Plains) Yearly Meeting has remained with Five Years Meeting (now Friends United Meeting).
The first worship service of what was to become University Friends was held in October of 1898, and University Friends Monthly Meeting was established in 1899, as a part of Kansas Yearly Meeting. For a number of years, we met on the campus of Friends University.
With funds that included support from Kansas Yearly Meeting and Quaker Women, we erected a new building, dedicated in October 1926, just blocks from campus. From then on, for the next forty-two years, Kansas Yearly Meeting held its annual sessions in that building.
In the late 1960s, University Friends Meeting joined what was then Nebraska (now Great Plains) Yearly Meeting. This affiliation was recommended by Richard Newby, our pastor at that time, and it was welcomed as reflecting the close ties many in our church had with folks in Friends United Meeting.
Since then, University Friends has had dual affiliation, formally connected to and accepted by the two yearly meetings. We have enjoyed thinking of ourselves as a bridge between these bodies of Friends, and we have seen our dual affiliation as an expression of our commitment to diversity and a reflection of the diversity of our own Meeting. More recently, we have increased our participation in Great Plains Yearly Meeting and Friends United Meeting, while we have continued to embrace our connections to EFC-MAYM, support its ministries, and participate in its programs.
In January of 2018, the Executive Council of Evangelical Friends Church North America affirmed a statement on marriage and sexuality that says, “… marriage is a God-ordained, covenant relationship between a biologically born male and a biologically born female” (letter from David O. Williams, Lead Superintendent of EFC-MAYM, February 7, 2020).
Last spring, in May 2019, Great Plains Yearly Meeting approved a Statement of Inclusion, which states that “people of any race, ethnicity, religious belief or non-belief, nationality, socio-economic status, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, mental or physical ability are welcome in our midst and are invited to fully participate in the life of Great Plains Yearly Meeting” (https://www.greatplainsyearlymeeting.org/).
University Friends Church has neither affirmed nor repudiated either Evangelical Friends’ statement on marriage and sexuality or Great Plains Yearly Meeting’s Statement of Inclusion. Some members of our Meeting welcomed the Great Plains statement. Others hold to the Evangelical Friends position. As a congregation, we aim to love one another, regardless of views on marriage and sexuality.
In addition, the Executive Council of Evangelical Friends North America decided in January 2019 “to disallow dual affiliations with other Friends organizations,” and in January 2020, the Elders Board of EFC-MAYM approved asking University Friends “to clarify their commitment to either EFC-NA or FUM” (letter from David O. Williams, Lead Superintendent of EFC-MAYM, February 7, 2020). We would need to choose one or the other.
University Friends took up the question of our yearly meeting affiliations during a time of transition that has followed the resignation of Cliff Loesch, our pastor of twenty-five years. We have been thinking about questions of who we are and what God is calling us to. In that context, we talked about the history of our yearly meeting affiliations, and on March 5 we had what some Friends call a threshing meeting, to talk about options in our response to the request of EFC-MAYM.
Then, at our Monthly Meeting for worship with a concern for business on March 8, we approved disaffiliating with EFC-MAYM: “since the option of dual affiliation with Great Plains Yearly Meeting and Mid-America Yearly Meeting has been withdrawn, we elected to retain our affiliation with Great Plains Yearly Meeting” (letter from Pam Chambers, UFM Ministry and Counsel clerk, April 19, 2020). Our Ministry and Counsel has subsequently met with David Williams and some of the EFC-MAYM elders because we wanted to explain how difficult this choice was for us.
In the process of our decision-making and the conversation with David Williams and the elders, it has become clear that the diversity we value is not shared by EFC-MAYM, to such a degree that, as one of the elders put it, we can no longer engage in ministry together.
The disaffiliation is set to be finalized at EFC-MAYM’s Ministry Conference on July 25, 2020.
We would appreciate your prayerful support as we continue to find our way forward.
Sincerely,
Doug Chambers, Presiding Clerk Catherine Griffith, Intentional Interim Minister
