North Carolina Yearly Meeting: Is “Reorganization” Beginning?

It’s been pretty quiet around North Carolina Yearly Meeting (FUM) in the weeks since their annual session, when the group stepped back from a formal split. 

That was a very close shave. The YM leadership came into the gathering wanting a purge disguised as a split. The steamroller machinery was in place. They trundled it up to the brink, and teetered on the edge.

Then they drew back. Lacking “sufficient unity”, they recalculated and suggest a “reorganization” instead. That was agreed to — but not defined. No one yet knows what it will mean, except that the two-year purge effort has been, thankfully, ended. (More on that here.)

That was one of the two most telling items of the session. 

The other was the number 8. 

We’ll get to that presently. 

Later this week, NCYM’s Executive Committee (EC) will gather. They’re the point people for starting work on the promised “reorganization.” What do they have in mind?  It’s anybody’s guess.

So here are some of mine: As the “reorganization” conversations get underway this autumn, there are several items that will loom large. None is insoluble; but none can be safely ignored. This is our first-cut list: 

1. Devolve the recording of pastors. For years the NCYM Recording committee has been a locus and flashpoint of factional maneuver and struggle. Its work has sown long-festering grievances and resentments, and has hardly assured a high quality of hires. So enough is enough. Delegating that task to local meetings, as the Baptists do, would likely be the safest option; or leaving it to the associations. 

2. Loosen the grip on Quaker Lake Camp. Reports from staff and board make clear that to survive, QLC has to become more autonomous and greatly broaden its marketing effort. When NCYM’s YF turnout is dropping rapidly, the body can hardly hope to fill the camp. While QLC can still maintain some loose ties with NCYM, autonomy is its future, if it’s to have one.

3. Watch the money, and use most of it for pensions. Just as NCYM’s shrinkage means there are fewer youth to send to camp, it has also left many fewer donors to support the fund for retired pastors. But seeing this obligation is met is something that most Friends can agree on. Thus much of NCYM’s income needs to go there, to fill its huge funding gap. Yes, pension checks are not as exciting as glitzy new mission projects; but it only seems that way, until you need the checks. 

4. Also about money: keep the NCYM “holding company” a bare bones operation; if there’s extra funds after overhead and pensions, divide it proportionally, and let meetings and their associations organize and support their own cooperative projects. That will also avoid many needless conflicts.

5. When a new General Secretary is hired, make sure (and make public) that she/he is committed to the reorganized YM project, and not some poser with pockets full of hidden factional agendas.

6. Keep the reorganization process open! Resist the chronic temptation to get a few selected “insiders” (especially pastors) together to hash things out privately. Make sure instead that rank and file members see and hear what the Executive Committee is doing, while they’re doing it, not just every three or six months in settled, take-it-or-leave-it packages. Let’s not waste the lessons of the “Gang of Nine/Seven” fiasco, the expulsion explosion of September 2015, or the other failed committees, which are: 1) there is no such spiritual elite group in NCYM; and 2) there are no shortcuts around the laborious work of building real “sufficient unity” for a genuine Quaker “consensus.” 

7. That business of the “instant revision” of Faith & Practice in November last year to make the YM supreme over local meetings – how about leaving it quietly on hold?  After all, the EC has just gone on record, with group approval, guaranteeing meetings autonomy about what to do with the reorganization. If the committee  means it, that’s a practical rollback of that provision; which is a good idea.

8. Don’t panic about the disappearance of young people. And I do mean “disappearance”; which brings us back to the Number 8. The important and portentous number 8.

That figure emerged on the last day, after the “reorganization” matter was done, in the report on the Young Friends program at the annual session. The “youth pastor” speaking for them noted that there were many fun activities and amenities available at the summer camp where they were gathered, and the YFs enjoyed them – all eight of them on hand.

I admit, my mind was wandering by then, but hearing that number jerked me to full attention. Eight? Ten minus two? Eight was the total number of teenagers who could be enticed or inveigled to show up? 

It was not so long ago that this YF turnout was well in three figures. And for that matter, the number 175, in the NCYM Epistle, added punch to the arithmetic. That’s how many attended the 2016 annual session overall. In 2013, only three years ago, the minutes list attendance as over 400, more than twice as many. The number of YFs was not broken out, but I well remember seeing large numbers of them.

One wonders if the NCYM Executive Committee saw them coming; or rather, not coming, as they looked into the abyss of a formal split.

For sure the collapse should have been no surprise. After all, the main topic of conversation in and around NCYM for two years had been: how can we make people go away? It’s hard to imagine an atmosphere more likely to turn off and alienate people of all ages, particularly anyone who feels spiritually vulnerable and is seeking freedom to explore and establish their own religious identities. 

But Friends, don’t give up on this either. Face it: it will take time to get over the past two years. And if NCYM does, there’s some more bad news to swallow, namely: most even relatively “happy” churches are losing young people too. 

The number of alarmed analyses of this exodus can crowd your bookshelf and stuff your email inbox; consultants are lined up to fill your weekends with high-priced seminars and workshops about it, and snake oil quick fixes are plentiful and priced like EpiPens – except at least the EpiPen actually works. 

Yet there are some church groups that are growing and holding on to youth. Are you ready for the list? Mormons, Amish, very Orthodox Jews, and some Muslim groups. Growing. Could NCYM learn something and maybe adapt some “best practices” from them?? I think so; but I doubt it will be easy.

9. Finally, don’t lose your nerve. No doubt at least a few more meetings will likely depart rather than accept NCYM’s no-split/no purge decision. Swallow hard, and let them go. Then if some claque of hardliners comes with another ultimatum, quietly hand it back to them and move on; NCYM has other, better work to do.

As the EC’s minute says, there will likely be more ideas and concerns come up. And there are no guarantees of success. But at least this time, we can end a report on a cautiously hopeful note.