GRE ConsultingSamuel Mahaffy of GRE Consulting Associates, has been selected by the London based World Office of the Friends World Committee on Consultation (FWCC) as their Global Change Coordinator. In this capacity, he will help to organize a worldwide series of national and regional gatherings and the concluding international consultation as part of the FWCC’s Consultation on Global Change.
The FWCC’s purpose is to encourage fellowship among the diverse branches of the Religious Society of Friends. It unites Quakers (Friends) spanning a rich diversity of cultures, beliefs, and styles of worship. Four autonomous FWCC Sections serve Africa, the Americas, Asia, and the West Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East. Since 1948, FWCC has had “consultative” status with the United Nations and is responsible for the two Quaker UN Offices in Geneva and New York.
FWCC convenes a Consultation among Friends worldwide, in the face of substantial evidence that the world climate is changing and access to basic resources and necessities of life is becoming increasingly threatened by depletion and exhaustion of non-renewable resources, pollution, economic, social, and spiritual dislocations. We seek a distinctive Quaker response, in asking how God’s justice, peace, and integrity of creation can be made visible in our responses to these challenges.
The FWCC Consultation on Global Change will utilize “cluster gatherings” in communities around the world to gather conversations and stories about the impact of Global Change. We understand the term “Global Change” to be encompassing of not only waves of change in the environment, but also to the economy, migration, agriculture, and how we live in the near future and beyond. We seek a spiritual response using “queries” or reflective questions, to facilitate this global conversation. The stories from small cluster gatherings will come together through a “Listening Committee” to a Consultation in 2011 and brought forward to the sixth World Conference of Friends to convene in Nairobi, Kenya in August 2012.
Through this process, we will offer our best understanding of what God is asking of us in these times in terms of action in response to global changes. How might we witness to abundance, justice, and peace in the face of significant disruptions and tensions? How might we rekindle our love and respect for God’s gift to us of the whole of creation?
Samuel Mahaffy is humbled and honoured to be selected for this work. He will be supported by his Associates at GRE Consulting, the Steering Committee and staff of FWCC, and a network of committed leaders in communities around the world. We invite your questions and thoughts as we discern how to move forward in this process.
——Portions of this information are from the FWCC World Office London (www.fwccworld.org) and from “Friends Responses to Global Change: A Broken Covenant?” A working document of the FWCC Steering Committee. Please do not duplicate without the permission of FWCC and GRE Consulting Associates.
