Living Letters: a Friendly Approach to Visitation Ministry

 You are a living letter of Christ, written not with  ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone  but on human hearts.    -2  Corinthians 3:3    

Think, for a moment, about the excitement you feel when you receive a letter in the  mail. Not a bill, not an advertisement: a real honest-to-goodness letter containing news about a friend and wishes for your well-being.    

There’s a sense of anticipation, right? There’s gratitude at having been remembered,  and curiosity about what’s inside.    

When members of the church visit one another, we meet with that same sense of holy anticipation. There’s a sharing, a communion between Friends who lead geographically separated lives but are one in the body of Christ.    

From the earliest days of the Quaker movement, Friends have been visiting each other. We send and receive travelers as Living Letters, with the same sense of joy and thankfulness that accompanies receiving a letter in the mail. Ordinary Friends, as traveling ministers, become epistles in human form- bringing messages of encouragement and assistance, and carrying news of Friends abroad to Friends at home.    

Friends visit in order to affirm our oneness as the body of Christ, meeting each other in times of need and in times of joy. We learn from each other and know  each other in that which is eternal. Through encountering each other in  worship and in service, we are knit together in love. And through the sometimes-surprising encounter with Christ in the “other,” both hosts and  guests are profoundly changed.    ‍

The Living Letters program of Friends United Meeting facilitates a wide variety of travel in the ministry: for service, for prayer, for learning, for solidarity, for  teaching, for discernment, for encouragement, for witness and more. Organized  opportunities are published through FUM media channels such as our website, Facebook page, and Connections publication, but  most Living Letters begin with a nudge in the heart and the testing of the local community. Contact livingletters@fum.org or call 765-962-7573 to learn more.