Workshops for Winter Gathering, 2025

9:00 am to 10:30 pm, Feb. 8, 2025 at West Hills Friends Church. Two workshops will be on-line as well.

Register by emailing registrar@scymf.org.

All Aboard the Allyship! Becoming a Better LGBTQIA Ally

Ahoy, friends! Do you want to be a better ally, but aren't sure where to start? Maybe you've got some burning questions, but you're afraid you'll have to walk the plank if you ask. Join us as we share some practical steps you can take to let your LGBTQIA friends know you've got their back. 

Christine Harms is a wife to Megan, a mom to their two kiddos, a former educator and missionary, a current author under two pen names and attends Eugene Friends Church. 

This workshop will be both in person and online. 

Playfulness for Grownups: Play as Worship

The work of childhood, in all but the direst circumstances, is play. In playing, children work out big feelings and confusing experiences. They practice communication, ask big questions, and experience the Inward Light. As adults, what if we, too, can refresh our spirits with play as a path to the Sacred?

Katherine and Mylène invite you to join us to hear a story about God's holy darkness and then play through waiting worship. We will have clay, words and poetry, water-brush boards, and other materials for responding with our hands as well as our hearts and minds. We also welcome you to bring something of your own that sparks playfulness, or to play in your imagination, without physical materials.

Katherine Spinner is a bi-cultural Friend who has led intergenerational worship at University Friends Meeting, in Seattle (North Pacific Yearly Meeting) and at West Hills Friends Church, which she learned about through the Pacific Northwest Quaker Women's Theology Conference.

Mylène DiPenta (they) tells Faith and Play stories at West Hills Friends Church, designs electronics, and seeks to undermine the soul-death that is Christian nationalism by using liberation theologies of lasting repair and whole-self joy.

This workshop will be in person only.

Queer, Quaker and Christian: holding on to Jesus in a queer-phobic and Christo-fascist world

In this workshop, Quaker theologian Mark Russ shares his faith journey as a Quaker, a Christian and a gay man, three identities that, for many, don't fit easily together. Drawing on Quaker, Christian and queer perspectives, Mark will offer a theology that he finds life-giving in a hostile world. This workshop includes the opportunity for shared discussion, reflection and questions.

Mark Russ is a Quaker theologian who lives in Birmingham, England. He is the author of Quaker Shaped Christianity (2022, Christian Alternative) and The Spirit of Freedom (2024, Christian Alternative), and blogs at jollyquaker.com. From 2015 to 2022 Mark was a member of the Learning and Research Team at Woodbrooke, the international Quaker learning and research organization based in Britain. He is currently studying for a PhD at the University of Nottingham, constructing a critical-white theology of liberal Quaker worship.

This workshop will be both in person and online. Mark will be on zoom.