Quaker Quest: An Outreach Tool for Friends

I’ve been with Quaker Quest from the start, since January 2002. I was one of a group of North London Friends who had intended to mark the 350th anniversary of Quakerism by holding weekly public meetings for seekers throughout the year. It seemed to us that in a city of over seven million, there were probably more than several thousand of us who would benefit from following the Quaker way. We set out to find some of them. So, with trepidation, after advertising as widely as we could afford, which was not very much, we opened our doors to the public.

People came! And kept coming, week after week. Our group met monthly to evaluate the project and to refine our program. We soon discovered what worked well and what didn’t. We developed a cycle of six sessions, repeated throughout the year, running weekly at the same time and venue. Each session consisted of brief ministry from four Quakers (three speakers and a host), discussion, and fellowship, in equal proportion. We always ended with a thirty-minute Meeting for Worship. At the end of the year we met to lay the project down, and realised that we couldn’t. Seekers were still coming in significant numbers to the Quaker Quest evenings (on average eighteen per night), and we felt as a group that we were called upon to carry on, to continue speaking to others about the faith that was so important to us in our lives. It was a very powerful meeting. We opened our doors again in January 2003 and they have been open ever since, although some of us who led the weekly sessions for six years have now handed it over to others. Other developments followed, including the publication of Twelve Quakers and God in 2004, the first of the seven booklets in the series. Other pamphlets cover worship, pacifism, evil, equality, simplicity and Jesus.

After a year or two of successful London meetings, Quakers around Britain had become interested in the project. We took Quaker Quest training workshops to interested meetings around Britain and a few groups in mainland Europe. There have now been Quaker Quests in at least fifty-four meetings in the United Kingdom. During National Quaker Week in Britain last autumn there were no fewer than thirty up and running. Some meetings are now on their third set of cycles, and some have made it an annual event in their meeting’s calendar. Later Australia wanted to try it too, then New Zealand and central and southern Africa. Now it’s spreading to North America.

We have no way of knowing how many people have become Quakers because of Quaker Quest. We felt from the beginning that to follow up our Questors would be intrusive. It would also be to miss the point: our purpose has never been to proselytise or convert, but rather to share our message. We do, however, have anecdotal evidence of a strengthening of the Society in numbers. Almost all meetings have had new attenders after their Quaker Quest. Some Questors from our early sessions are now speakers at Quaker Quest sessions. Two have served as clerks of London meetings, and a number are active in other meetings. Questors from London have been spotted elsewhere in the world, notably Australia and the US. What is special about the Quaker Quest way of outreach? I think it’s mainly that we have tried so hard to reach the seekers where they are. We speak simply and honestly about deep spiritual matters, which is what they want to explore, rather than regaling them with information that we think they should hear. How many people are exploring a new faith because they’re interested in its history? Or its unusual structure? None, in our experience.

We have found that what seekers are looking for is a way of exploring their own understanding of the divine, a way of finding meaning and purpose in their lives. They want to hear of our journeys in the spirit, and how the Quaker way has worked for us. We don’t talk to them about our unique way of worship—we do it with them. We speak from the heart; we speak of our own personal experience; we speak in ministry. We as Friends have a precious gift that others could benefit from. Quaker Quest is built on the premise that we should share it. One surprising side effect that those of us in the London group have experienced is a revitalising of our own faith. We shouldn’t have been surprised at the effect that articulating our faith experience had on us, but we were. Then we heard from other Friends around the country of how their faith had been deepened too, and how their meetings had found a new spiritual vigor. This has been the experience of Friends nearly everywhere that a Quaker Quest has taken place. Perhaps it’s the most important outcome of the project, that we have learned again to speak to each other in the things that are eternal.

Mary Jo Clogg is a member of the Quaker Quest Network, a former librarian of Woodbrooke Quaker Study Center in Birmingham, England and still an occasional, associate tutor there on courses for elders and overseers. She will cofacilitate (with Elaine Crauderueff) a Quaker Quest workshop at this year’s Gathering in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.