Interfaith Junction Series

Facilitated by Beth Kelly and Chase Salazar

Join with other young adult Friends, experienced Friends, and friends from other faith communities as we explore our values and how they can help us collaborate! Interfaith work is often a key part of movements that seek to address injustice and heal the world. Lately, many young adult Friends have been curious about making these sorts of connections, but don’t know where to start. If you’re curious like that, this program is for you!

Our program takes place in three parts:

• On January 31, we will meet in the afternoon at Brooklyn Meetinghouse to explore our own religious lineages and spiritual values. This is because interfaith work needs us to be able to articulate our spiritual values in words other people understand. We’ll also eat and play :)
• Between February 1 and March 28, there will be a series of Zoom discussions in which we learn about a specific religious tradition and hear both someone from that tradition and an experienced Quaker respond to the values expressed in a Quaker testimony. Participants will get to ask questions and consider how their own beliefs and concerns intersect with what they hear from others. Each topic will have two times to choose from: a Wednesday evening time and a Saturday late morning time.
• The weekend of March 28-29 we will meet for a closing retreat at Oakwood Friends School in Poughkeepsie. This will be open to anyone who attended any earlier part of the program. We will have the time to “eat together, pray together, and play together,” along with exploring how we can be in collaboration and solidarity with various religious groups. This is an event that starts on Saturday with brunch and ends Sunday afternoon with closing after brunch; you can stay overnight in a dorm.

We will use the testimonies/values of Stewardship, Truth (Integrity), Equality, Peace (Harmony), Unity (Community), and Plain Living (Simplicity) as starting points for articulating our individual and collective beliefs, and excerpts fromA How to Be a Perfect Stranger as background reading for work with friends from other faiths.

When you use this form to register, you will be asked to specify which sessions you plan to attend so we can provide you with things to read in advance. But don’t worry – we’ll review the reading at the top of each session!

Please also indicate whether you will be bringing children to our in-person gatherings so we can arrange for childcare. We need at least a week’s notice of childcare needs in Brooklyn, and two weeks notice for the March retreat.

A full description of our program as well as answers to frequently asked questions can be found here.