• Some Illinois YM Friends have tested their leadings through clearness committees before making travel plans.  Others have made their plans, then asked for a minute or letter of introduction.  Some just go, like one Friend who, with neither support nor opposition from his meeting, faithfully visited a neighboring meeting for over a year, because he felt led to.
• Meetings generally form a clearness committee for anyone who asks.  Some monthly meetings, after some clearness process, have granted travel minutes.  At least one meeting, after reaching clearness, asked the yearly meeting to grant a travel minute. 
• Any document introducing a Friend tends to be called a "travel minute;" some do not indicate such a clearness process.
• Some meetings have been willing to help with money, but unwilling to associate the trip with any idea of ministry.  Sometimes Friends seem dismayed at the idea of trying to distinguish, for themselves or for another, between a leading and a personal want or whim. 
• It may be difficult for Friends to identify their internal sense of leading to travel in the ministry, in those terms--and then, difficult to make that sense of leading known.
• "Most Friends seem not to understand the rationale of the old system."

How are Friends who feel called to ministry being nurtured and supported? How do your local meetings deal with their members who are called to a ministry, or to travel among Friends?  In what ways does your yearly meeting support the monthly meetings in this ongoing nurture?

• We are better at supporting work, sometimes with money or labor, than we are 

• Our clearness committees are more often about personal issues or problems than about calls to ministry.
• Friends may become involved with FGC or FWCC as a way to get support; some Friends may have enrolled in Earlham School of Religion or another seminary to get nurtured and supported.
• There are under-currents of concern lest granting money for travel lead to many requests for funding for personal enrichment, or to jealousies. 
• It seems risky to say "yes" and support an appropriate volunteer, when we don't know how to say "no" to an inappropriate one.
• "The people who are active in the meeting support each other."
• "Friends who are active are appreciated and thanked a lot."
• "Sometimes, Friends just go to the areas of meeting life where their gifts call them." 
• Some wish there were ways to help our meetings discover and name the gifts of their members.

How are Friends who are engaged in ministry or traveling in the ministry held accountable?  Is there a common understanding and practice among monthly meetings, or not?  How does your yearly meeting understand, support, and encourage ongoing accountability?

• We have a strong fear of being judgmental, or even seeming judgmental. 
• We assume things are fine and try not to meddle, until we hear of a disaster.
• We expect service to the meeting and take it for granted, but voice criticism when things don't turn out the way we expect. 
• Sometimes what one Friend notices as good, another finds unexceptional or problematic, and complains about. 
• Framing reactions as individual opinion gives their individual holders right to be pleased or upset, without claiming any