Quakers Today
Produced by Quaker Communications (London), October 2006 (details
below)
Contents:
Who are the Quakers?
Quaker Meetings
Quakers, God and Jesus
Faith andpractice
The Quaker community
Who can be a Quaker?
Who are the Quakers?
The Religious Society of Friends - more commonly known as Quakers -
is
a small group of some 25,000 worshippers in the UK. Quakers believe
that it is possible for every person to have a real and direct
experience of God, without the need for priests and rituals. If you are
used to a priest-led service, you will find a Quaker meeting for
worship quite different.
Quaker Meetings
Quaker Meetings are usually held on Sundays and last for about an hour.
If you walk into a Quaker meeting, you will find a group of people
sitting facing each other in a circle or a square. There will not be an
altar or hymnbooks, although you will find copies of the Bible and
Quaker Faith and Practice, which is an anthology of our own Quaker
experience of God.
Our meetings are based on silent waiting, and the silence can be
very
moving. Sometimes, someone will feel inspired to stand and speak
briefly in their own words, or to read from the Bible, or to pray. We
can learn a lot from other people's experience of God, which may be
very different from our own.
Quakers, God and
Jesus
Every Quaker will have their own interpretation of the word "God", but
in fact we all have a great deal in common and try not to spend too
much time on definitions. For example, you will find some Quakers who
have a strong belief in Jesus Christ as their saviour, while others
recognise that Jesus was a good man whose example is worth following,
but aren't too concerned about the theology. All this makes for a rich
and diverse company of Quakers.
Faith and practice
Quakers feel that it is no good having a faith if you don't put it into
practice. Because we believe that there is something of God in everyone
- however difficult that may be to find at times - we try to respond to
all people in a way that lives out that belief. It means treating
everyone with respect, whatever their beliefs, race, age or gender.
It also means working towards making this world a better place.
Quakers
have always been involved in helping slaves, prisoners, the mentally
ill, refugees and war casualties, to name but a few. Responding to that
of God in everyone means that we will never resort to war or violence
to solve a problem. Instead we work for peaceful solutions and
reconciliation.
The Quaker
community
As we don't have priests or other paid clergy, it is up to us to run
our own Quaker meetings. We take it in turn to serve in roles such as
the clerk (the person responsible for our business meetings) or on the
coffee rota or on the premises committee. Meetings may also run study
groups and hold shared lunches where you can get to know other Quakers
and find out about their experience of Quakerism.
Who can be a
Quaker?
Quaker meetings are open to everyone and no pressure will be put on you
if you want to come and find out about us. You may also wish to write
to us for an information pack or to attend one of our weekends for
enquirers where you will meet other people like yourself who want to
see if Quakerism might be right for them.
You can also visit our UK website: www.quaker.org.uk.
Copies of this information as a leaflet and
further information about the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)
may be obtained from:
Quaker Life, Friends House, Euston Road, London NW1 2BJ Email:
ql@quaker.org.uk
Freephone: 0808 109 1651 www.quaker.org.uk
Produced by Quaker Communications, October 2006
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