Quaker Quest and Meeting Outreach
Steve
Chase
Susan
Loucks
Short Description:
Gather with other Friends with a concern for outreach. We will discuss simple, radical and contemporary ways of articulating Quaker spiritual practices and testimonies to others and to ourselves, with a particular focus on how to use the Quaker Quest program that is taking root in the United States and Canada.
Long Description:
How can we communicate that which we have found in our faith, the "precious gift," to others who hunger after a spiritual path based on truth, love and social justice? This workshop will introduce ways of making our meetings visible to the wider communities they are in, and ways of speaking our truth clearly to those who come to learn about us. This workshop DOES NOT train participants to give Quaker Quest workshops. However, we hope to inspire participants to start an effective outreach program in their home meetings and to offer practical help to see it through.
We have found that where meetings unite behind a dynamic outreach program, they themselves are enriched and strengthened by it. There is a strong inreach benefit to be gained from dynamic outreach. This has been the experience of meetings throughout Britain Yearly Meeting that have run a Quaker Quest program.
Quaker Quest is a very specific program, which differs in significant ways from other forms of outreach. In this workshop we hope to enable participants to take the Quaker Quest idea back to their Monthly or Quarterly Meetings.
In the workshop we will practice articulating our faith in a simple and dynamic way. We have found that in this way we grow in the spirit, both as individuals and meetings, and we intend for this workshop to be spiritually nourishing for the participants. It will be similar to the workshop held at the 2007, 2008, and 2009 Gatherings, where participants said that they did feel they had been strengthened in their faith.
It would be helpful if participants could make themselves familiar with existing outreach activities in their area. We also suggest that, if possible, participants read the December 2008 Friends Journal article "Three Quakers and Jesus: An Excerpt From A Quaker Quest Session," and one or more of the "12 Quakers and..." series of booklets published by Quaker Quest, which illustrate the process of speaking the Quaker truth. Also, please, visit the following two websites:
www.quakerquestfgc.org
www.quakerquest.org
Available at QuakerBooks.org
Quaker Quest - Find it now!
