~~Opportunity for all to discuss how Biblical Scripture shapes our individual journeys as Quakers today

The Worship and Ministry and First Day School committees invite all in the community to an Adult Religious Education forum on Sunday, March 1st at 11:45 (after rise of meeting).  Three current First Day School teachers (Rich Schiffer, Bere Saxon, and Shelley Costa) will give a brief panel presentation exploring the role of the Bible in their lives.  While this topic has been brought to the fore by their current Bible-related teaching, the format is not intended as a report on curriculum.  Rather, the aim is to invite the wider adult community into a joint discussion on the Good Book and what it might mean to relate our lives to it in a conscious manner (including agnosticism or opposition).  As Quakers, our different personal understandings of the Bible and of Christian doctrine is part of the “hidden curriculum” that students do and should learn about Quakerism.  While we celebrate this, we also note that when such diversity is not supported by appropriate structure and dialogue, it leads many young people raised as Quaker to describe themselves as having been raised with “no belief.”  Our longstanding practice of presenting graduating 5th graders with Bibles inscribed with their names does not seem to be enough to allow them to articulate a collective experience of that Book in a Quaker context. We hope that the opportunity to discuss this in a larger meeting context will enrich all of our self-understandings as Quakers in relation to the Bible and (consequently) the students’ experience of coming of age in our community with all of us as spiritual mentors.