Spiritual and Intellectual Nurture Committee (SINC)

The Spiritual and Intellectual Nurture Committee (SINC) develops and coordinates events to encourage continual nourishing of the spiritual and intellectual life of the Stony Run community.

SINC Mission Statement

The Spiritual and Intellectual Nurture Committee sees its role as largely defined by its name. It seeks to provide forums whereby the Stony Run community can be nurtured, informed, challenged, and inspired, by discussions of matters intellectual and spiritual. Ideally, forums will both grow out of Meeting for Worship and other Quaker commitments, and feed back into them. SINC committee members are thus enjoined to engage in a "deep listening" in order to discover what topics most call out, at any given time, to be addressed. This listening should be prayerful, with our committee meetings designed to permit its emergence. The still, small voice will reveal more than any focus on bureaucratic scheduling.

In harmony with the above, SINC sees its role in the planning of forums as pro-active rather than reactive. Numerous requests arrive from committees and individuals for specific forums; this is wonderful, indicating the healthy state of the meeting. Nonetheless, SINC ordinarily will reserve a number of forums for sessions of its own design. It may also choose to sponsor multi-session forums, for example on prayer and meditation, or art and Quaker life, allowing for depth of discussion and continuity of focus.

SINC strives to be maximally responsive to forum requests from other sectors of the meeting. As a general policy, every request will be considered. Special attempts will be made to honor proposals from other committees or meeting groups that have thought through a need and arrived at clarity. However, SINC may give suggestions and input in even these cases to assure that forums serve more than just an organizational function, but provide “spiritual and intellectual nurture” for the meeting.

Scheduling issues also mandate that certain forum requests may need to be denied or delayed. Available times are simply limited. In balancing competing possibilities, SINC may consider factors such as: the import and timeliness of the topic; its potential contribution to the spiritual and intellectual life of the meeting; the number of people who have expressed interest, or might be expected to attend such a forum; the length of time that has passed since a similar topic has been addressed; potential of a special speaker; etc. As always, rational deliberation must be harmonized with prayerful guidance. The seemingly offbeat suggestion of a single individual may open the way to a powerful forum.

Thus, SINC committee members, above all, seek to be good listeners: to the spirit and needs of the meeting; to the suggestions of other committees and individuals; and to the leadings which well up within our own hearts. Through such listening, meaningful forums are collaboratively planned and implemented.