These online courses are being offered by Canadian Yearly Meeting Education & Outreach Committee in Winter 2015
Facilitator: Eric Kristensen, Vancouver Monthly Meeting
Friends across Canada are invited to participate in one or both of these online courses, which were offered previously in 2012. They will begin the second week of January and conclude in late February 2015.
Introduction to Quakers and Friends’ Ways will address the early history of Friends, the history of Friends in Canada, the experiential nature of Quaker faith, the role of the Meeting in Quaker life, Quaker testimonies and their origin, and how our Quaker community nurtures how we live, work, worship, and transact business.
Being Peace, Being Quaker is based on a non-violent communication model influenced by Quaker values. It will address the peace we cultivate within ourselves, creating peaceful relations with others, listening and empathy exercises, answering that of God in ourselves and others, and the role of love in conflict situations.
Participants will receive readings in advance for each of the six weekly course sessions and connect via online video conference and/or telephone. The two courses will be scheduled to accommodate participants as well as possible. The full course descriptions, readings and resource materials are available on the CYM web site here:
http://quaker.ca/resources/
The courses will include worship, active exercises, reflections from readings and the application to one’s own life of what is learned. Each session of Being Peace, Being Quaker will last 90 minutes. Each session of Introduction to Friends’ Ways will take two hours. Online polls for scheduling the time and day for each course will be sent to all interested participants to determine the best time for the greatest number of people. In order to ensure that these courses are a positive and engaging experience, the number of participants in each course will be limited to ten. The courses may be offered again if demand is high.
How to Sign Up
The courses are free of charge and open to members and attenders of meetings and worship groups in Canada. Materials will be distributed to participants in advance of each session by email. To indicate your interest in taking one of these courses, please contact Eric Kristensen with the following information:
1. Contact and geographical information
a. Name
b. City, town or location, Province
c. Email address
d. Telephone number
e. Time Zone
f. Meeting or Worship Group
2. Select the course you are most interested in taking.
3. What days and times are you available to participate in your chosen course? (weekends included)
Please send this information or any questions to Eric Kristensen by December 1 at ericwk@telus.net
If you wish to inquire by telephone, please send an email including your telephone number and the best time to reach you (again, please include your time zone – PST, MST, CST, EST, AST or NST).
The facilitator, Eric Kristensen, is retired from a career in university teaching development. He is currently a member of Vancouver Friends Meeting and serves on its Meeting on Ministry and Counsel. Previously, he was a member of North Shore Friends Meeting in Beverly Farms, Massachusetts (New England Yearly Meeting) and has been a member of the Society since joining Friends Meeting at Cambridge (Massachusetts) in 1978. He has served Friends on the boards of the American Friends Service Committee, Friends General Conference, and Moses Brown School (Providence, Rhode Island). He has also served on many committees in those organisations as well as clerk for New England Yearly Meeting’s Permanent Board and Friends for Lesbian and Gay Concerns (now FLGBTQC). He holds the M.Div. from Harvard Divinity School and an M.A. in Musicology from Harvard University as well as a B.A from Columbia University.