Worship, discernment, and being together

For many Friends, the heart of Annual Gathering is simply being together. Worship and discernment give shape to the days, but so do the relationships that grow through shared meals, conversations, walks, music, play, and time that is not tightly scheduled.

The Gathering creates room to reconnect with longtime Friends, get to know people from other Meetings and generations, and form new relationships. Worship-sharing groups, informal conversations, and the ordinary life that happens around the edges of the schedule often become some of the most lasting parts of the experience.

Friends themselves bring the Gathering into being. Everyone has a role in the life of the Gathering — simply by being present and participating, by sharing ministries and concerns, carrying the work of business, contributing to a welcoming community, joining in worship and fellowship, or taking part in the many other ways that make our time together possible.

Across generations

Children and young people have always been an integral part of Annual Gathering. Their presence has long helped make the Gathering a genuinely intergenerational community, where relationships across generations are part of our life together.

For younger Friends, Gathering can offer something that may be hard to find at home: time with other children and young people from Quaker families and communities. For younger Friends, Gathering can offer something that may be hard to find at home: time with other children and young people from Quaker families and communities. It gives them a chance to be with peers who share some experience of Quaker life.

Junior and Senior Young Friends have their own communities within the Gathering, with time for friendship, worship, play, outings, conversation, shared concerns, and their own business. Along the way, they practice Quaker ways of listening, discernment, decision-making, and caring for their community.

Much of Gathering life is shared across generations. Worship, meals, recreation, celebrations, conversation, and simply being together create opportunities for relationships that might not otherwise form. Younger Friends may hear older Friends speak about their lives, their witness and social action, or their journeys among Friends, while older Friends encounter the experiences, questions, and perspectives of younger generations. Those relationships are part of how our Quaker life is shared and carried forward.

What we bring — and what we carry home

Friends arrive carrying different experiences, questions, ministries, and concerns. Being together gives us the chance to hear what’s stirring among Friends throughout the yearly meeting and beyond, to bring our own experience into the conversation, and to discern what Spirit may be asking of us.

Across the decades, Friends have gathered to wrestle together with the spiritual and social concerns of their own times. The particular questions change, but the practice of listening deeply, testing leadings, and seeking clarity together has remained.

From the earliest years, Friends have also asked how our Monthly Meetings benefit from gathering together. What happens at Gathering does not stay there. Friends carry relationships, questions, insights, and sometimes new leadings home with them, strengthening the connections between our Meetings and the wider yearly meeting.

Making it possible to gather

The form of Annual Gathering has changed as the needs of the IMYM community have changed.

When attendance outgrew Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, New Mexico, in the late 1980s, the Gathering moved to Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. It later returned to Ghost Ranch. During the pandemic, Annual Gathering moved entirely online, and when Friends began gathering onsite again, IMYM returned to Fort Lewis in part because the campus could better support a continuing hybrid Gathering.

Another important change came in 2018, when IMYM adopted a Pay as Led approach to Gathering. The change reflected a deep commitment to making Annual Gathering accessible to everyone who wants to take part. Friends contribute as they feel led and able, while the wider IMYM community shares responsibility for making the Gathering possible. IMYM seeks to make Annual Gathering possible for every Friend who wishes to be there, regardless of their financial circumstances.

Today, some activities are onsite, some online, and some hybrid. Not every part of Gathering can happen meaningfully in every format, and the ways we gather continue to evolve. Underneath those changes is a question Friends have returned to again and again: how do we make it possible for all who are drawn to Gathering to take part?

Come gather with us

The places, programs, themes, and ways we participate have changed over the years, and will continue to change. What endures is the heart of Gathering: worship and discernment, relationships formed and deepened, the concerns and leadings we bring to one another, joy and play, and the experience of living for a few days as a gathered yearly meeting.

Whether Annual Gathering has been part of your life for decades or you are thinking about coming for the first time, there is a place for you in the Gathering.