Message from the Pastoral Care and Eldership Team (PaCET) for Sunday Meeting 30th July 2023

Dear Friends,

Having been asked to provide an inspirational reading this week, I immediately thought of Isaac Pennington, who I find perhaps the most accessible and modern of the 17^th century Quaker writers.  Quaker Faith and Practice 10.27 I found spoke to my condition as regards the challenges of maintaining amity and unity amongst a group as diverse and strong-minded as Quakers – I hasten to add not just at Lewes.  I then felt that a subsequent piece from Pierre Ceresole (10.29) complemented it by articulating why we join together as a Quaker community despite the challenges that may arise.  So, here are both.

Are there not different states, different degrees, different growths, different places? … Therefore, watch every one to feel and know his own place and service in the body, and to be sensible of the gifts, places, and services of others, that the Lord may be honoured in all, and every one owned and honoured in the Lord, and no otherwise. QfP 10.27

I feel very strongly … that the spiritual life absolutely requires that we should not remain isolated. It is this deep need of getting out of a prolonged and dangerous relative isolation which urges me to ask now to be admitted among the Quakers. It is more and more clear to me that it is only in the bosom of a religious family, freely but very strongly constituted, that the individual can render to the world the services it sorely needs and which no politics, not based on a deep inspiration, can hope to organise. QfP 10.29

John Ashcroft


On behalf of the Pastoral Care and Eldership Team (David Hitchin, Chris Lawson, Tim Pitt-Payne, Caroline Pybus, Theresa Samms and Nancy Wall)