Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting

Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting is a Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) affiliated with Friends General Conference. It encompasses 18 monthly meetings in Southwest Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky.

External links

• Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting's Website

Organization

Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting (OVYM) is a spiritual community of 19 Monthly Meetings in Indiana, Kentucky and Southwest Ohio, organized under two Quarterly Meetings, Miami Quarterly and Whitewater Quarterly Meetings. Monthly Meetings meet weekly for worship and conduct their business once a month; quarterly meetings conduct business quarterly; Yearly Meetings meet annually but have an appointed Executive Committee to conduct business between annual sessions.

Members of OVYM, including representatives appointed by each Monthly Meeing, gather each summer at the end of July for our Annual Sessions: five days of worship, spiritual renewal, and fellowship. We also conduct the business of the Yearly Meeting: lay ministry, religious education, finance, and Faith and Practice. All members of the Yearly Meeting and their guests are welcome to attend.

A Yearly Meeting is the central organizing unit of the Religious Society of Friends with no larger body exercising authority over it. As such, Yearly Meetings develop their own concepts of beliefs and operations, which they publish in a Faith and Practice document. The Yearly Meeting ties the Monthly Meetings together and exists as a support organization to those Monthly Meetings. Like a Monthly Meeting, the Yearly Meeting exists to build community, support the life of the spirit, and discern appropriate action as an active witness to the world.

Monthly Meetings, OVYM are grouped under Quarterly Meetings.

Miami Quarterly's Monthly Meetings:

• Campus Meeting, Wilmington, Ohio
• Community Meeting, Cincinnati, Ohio
• Dayton Meeting, Dayton, Ohio
• Eastern Hills, Cincinnati, Ohio
• Green Plain Meeting, Selma, Ohio
• Lexington Meeting, Lexington, Kentucky
• Louisville Meeting, Louisville, Kentucky
• Miami Meeting, Waynesville, Ohio
• Oxford Meeting, Oxford, Ohio
• Yellow Springs Meeting, Yellow Springs, Ohio

Whitewater Quarterly's Monthly Meetings:

• Bloomington Meeting, Bloomington, Indiana
• Clear Creek Meeting, Richmond, Indiana
• Fall Creek Meeting, Pendleton, Indiana
• Fort Wayne Meeting, Fort Wayne, Indiana
• Hopewell Meeting, Pershing, Indiana
• Lafayette Meeting, West Lafayette, Indiana
• Maple Grove Meeting, Grabill, Indiana
• North Meadow Meeting, Indianapolis, Indiana
• White Rose Meeting, Wabash, Indiana

History

Existing with several different names since the early 1800s, Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting (OVYM) was originally formed from Monthly Meetings under the care of Baltimore Yearly Meeting. The beginnings of OVYM are deeply rooted in the anti-slavery movement. Quakers have sought that of God in all people, whether female or male, white or people of color, young or old. Although some early Quakers held slaves, many came to see that this was incompatible with their testimony of equality. This was especially difficult for Friends living in the Southern states. Some began to investigate moving to the Northwest Territory, designated as slave free. This included Ohio and other Midwest states. When Quakers moved from North Carolina to the "free state" of Ohio to escape the scourge of slavery and created Miami Monthly Meeting (Waynesville, Ohio), the first Quaker Meeting of what would become Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting was founded. Over the years, more monthly meetings were branched off of Miami and eventually there were sufficient related meetings in the area to organize the Yearly Meeting.

During the 18th Century many Friends were attracted southward into Virginia and the Carolinas and became involved in the institution of slavery. Near the end of that century, as a result of the labor of John Woolman and others, Friends came to believe slavery a curse; and slowly the conscience of the Society of Friends there awakened to the evil. Seeing no other way out of their dilemma, most Friends decided to transfer title of their slaves to the Yearly Meeting (North Carolina), since it was illegal to free them; sell their property, which brought only one-half of its real worth; and migrate to the Northwest Territory to begin a new life there.

The migration to the Waynesville, Ohio, area began in 1799 when Abijah O‘Neal and his family left Bush River, South Carolina, and settled on some 3,000 acres on the east bank of the Little Miami River north of Caesar‘s Creek. Within 15 years more than 18,000 followers of Fox and Penn left the land of slavery and made for the North to find a home in the Northwest Territory. Others came to the Miami country from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and other seaboard states.

In April, 1801, twelve families (81 individuals) in the Waynesville area began meeting for worship in a member‘s home. Near the end of that year they sent a request to Westland Meeting, Pennsylvania (Baltimore Yearly Meeting) for establishing a regular meeting for worship on First and Fifth Days. This request was granted in Ninth Month, 1802. The Meeting was called Miami. Early in 1803 Miami asked Westland Meeting for permission to establish a Monthly Meeting; and when the request was approved, the Monthly Meeting was opened, Tenth Month 13, 1803. The eastern boundary was the Hocking River, the southern was the Ohio River, but there was no limit to the north or to the west. During this period of migration, hundreds of Friends from the Carolinas and Georgia brought their membership to Miami Monthly Meeting, until such time as other meetings could be established in the Northwest Territory. By 1815, Miami Monthly Meeting was said to have the largest membership of any Friends Meeting in Quakerdom.

After its establishment in 1803, Miami Monthly Meeting set off many new Meetings. Among the earliest ones were Lees Creek, Hardin Creek, Caesar‘s Creek, West Branch, Elk, Center and Whitewater. In 1807 Miami, West Branch and Center Monthly Meetings requested that a new Quarterly Meeting be established to be known as Miami Quarterly Meeting, to be held at Waynesville, Ohio, on the second Seventh Day in the Second, Fifth, Eighth and Eleventh Months. Baltimore Yearly Meeting having approved the request, Miami Quarterly Meeting was opened, Fifth month 1809. The building of the White Brick Meetinghouse at Waynesville was begun in 1811 to accommodate the Quarterly Meeting.

In 1812 Baltimore Yearly Meeting granted permission to the Quarterly Meetings west of the Alleghenies to form a yearly meeting which was called Ohio Yearly Meeting. The first session was held at Short Creek on the 14th of Eighth month, 1813. The Ohio Yearly Meeting included all meetings in Ohio, Indiana Territory and adjacent areas of Pennsylvania and Virginia.

In 1820 Miami Quarterly Meeting proposed that all Meetings in Illinois, Indiana and western Ohio be known as Indiana Yearly Meeting. The Quarterly Meetings making up the new proposed Yearly Meeting were Miami, West Branch, Fairfield, Whitewater and Blue River Quarterlies. Ohio Yearly Meeting approved the proposal, and the first session was held at Whitewater, Eighth month 10, 1821.

When the separation occurred in 1828, the Yearly Meeting split into two bodies: Indiana Yearly Meeting Orthodox (later Friends United Meeting), and Indiana Yearly Meeting Hicksite (later Friends General Conference). At Waynesville the Hicksite body retained the Meetinghouse; however, in most other cases west of the Alleghenies, the Orthodox body retained it.

"The separation mentioned in the previous paragraph refers to a major split between Hicksite Friends and Orthodox Friends in North America beginning in 1827 and ending by 1830. The catalyst for the separation was the theologically liberal preaching of Elias Hicks, a minister from Long Island, New York. Today the historical descendants of the original Hicksite meetings are more commonly referred to as liberal Friends. Orthodox Friends underwent a number of further splits in the 19th century and early 20th century centuries, but have since then mostly consolidated into Conservative Friends and pastoral Friends, the latter sometimes being divided between Friends United Meeting Friends and evangelical Friends."

In 1975 there were two reasons why it seemed desirable for this Yearly Meeting (Indiana Yearly Meeting of Friends General Conference) to change its name: one, the unavoidable confusion which resulted from identical names; and two, the need to better identify the area included in the membership. For these reasons the name of Indiana Yearly Meeting FGC to Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting. The change became effective in 1976. At that time the Yearly Meeting was composed of two Quarters: Miami and Whitewater.

Beliefs

The Religious Society of Friends holds as the basis of its faith the belief that God endows every person with a measure of the same Divine Spirit. The gift of God’s presence and the light of God’s truth have been available to all people in all ages. Friends find this manifestation of God exemplified in Jesus of Nazareth. The Divine Spirit became so wholly Jesus’ own that his teaching, example, and sacrificial life reveal the will of God to humanity. As within ourselves we become conscious of the same Spirit (the "Inward Light" or the "Christ Within"), and as we submit ourselves to its leadings, we also are enabled to live in conformity to the will of God. Quakers believe that every person is a vehicle of God.

Love, the outworking of the Diving Spirit, is the most potent influence that can be applied in and to human affairs, and this application of love to the whole of life is seen by Quakers as the core of the Christian Gospel.

"A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall all know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another." (John 13:34-35)

Worship

Friends in Friends General Conference (FGC) continue the 350 year-old tradition of silent worship. We have no presiding priest, pastor, or minister. Friends believe that within each person is a divine spark or "Inner Light" of Christ and that every person is a vehicle of God, a carrier of the Spirit of Christ.

There is no creed, no prepared order of worship, and no sermon. Worship is guided by the Holy Spirit. This simple Christian form of worship seeks for direct communication and communion with the Divine without intermediary. The sense of worship may be expressed in the awe that is felt in attentive silence, on the awareness of our profound connectedness to one another, and connectedness to nature and its power. In worship can be found repentance and forgiveness in the acknowledgement of God as the ultimate source of our being and the serenity of accepting God’s will. Each experience in worship is different as God reaches to us as individuals in our current situation and circumstance. There is no right way to prepare for spiritual communion, no set practice to follow when worship grows out of expectant waiting in the Spirit. Worship depends far more on a deeply-felt longing for God than upon a specific practice or format.

"Ask and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened unto you." (Matthew 7:7)

During Meeting for Worship, a member of the group may be moved to speak out of the silence, to share a leading from God, or a prayer, passage of Scripture, or even words of an inspirational poem or hymn. Fellow worshippers are called to listen with openness of heart and mind. Messages may be meant for a member of the gathered meeting or for all in attendance. Sometimes the silence remains unbroken. After a suitable period, usually around an hour, Meeting for Worship is ended by two worshippers shaking hands, followed by handshakes by all in attendance.

Thoughts by the Current and Past Clerks

Yearly Meeting as an Extended Meeting for Worship (Paul Kriese)

I am reminded that the [Yearly Meeting Annual] Sessions as a whole are various ways to worship that which is holy and sacred in each of us. Business sessions are held in holy obedience to the corporate will of God expressed in our worshipful discernment of issues. Workshops are more focused explorations into various aspects of how the Spirit of God speaks to us. The various youth groups meet and begin to (or continue to deepen) their sense of how they connect to our religious society in work and play and community building exercises. As we eat together, gather in informal collectives or sequester ourselves in solitude we regain our sense of being a gathered community collected by the spirit to do God's will.

Alive and Quiet: Come be with Us (Ben Griffith)

If I had to characterize the business of Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting this year in one word, I would use the word "Quiet." As a clerk, this quietness has given me a slight nervousness. A natural defensive caution can be a good thing for a clerk. However, when I find some Center and evaluate what is going on in the Yearly Meeting, what I see is many Friends powerfully engaged in the monthly meeting community they belong to. This is good. The Yearly Meeting’s health is bottom up stuff. It is time now for you to renew yourself. OVYM is part of this process. The call is clear to listen for the spirit within us. If I had to characterize the spirit moving within us in one word, I would use the word "Alive." Come experience the wonder of waiting. Be with us!