In the context of worship and after a two year discernment process, FGC’s Central Committee (our “board of directors”) adopted the following “Minute of Purpose” and four major goals at its October, 1995, meeting.

Minute of Purpose

Friends General Conference is a Quaker organization in the unprogrammed tradition of the Religious Society of Friends which primarily serves affiliated yearly and monthly meetings. It is our experience that:

• Faith is based on direct experience of God.
• Our lives witness this experience individually and corporately.
• By answering that of God in everyone, we build and sustain inclusive community.

Friends General Conference provides resources and opportunities that educate and invite members and attenders to experience, individually and corporately, God’s living presence, and to discern and follow God’s leadings. Friends General Conference reaches out to seekers and to other religious bodies inside and outside the wider Religious Society of Friends.

Major Goals

God willing, in the next five years, Friends General Conference will:

1. Provide, and help its affiliated yearly and monthly meetings to offer opportunities for worship and spiritual nurture to people ranging from the most seasoned Friends to the newest seekers.
2. Nurture the small and isolated monthly meetings and worship groups, particularly in areas where little support is available.
3. Build and sustain an extended, loving community of Friends, a community which embraces and respects great diversity but which is nevertheless based on the experience of unity in God’s spirit.
4. Articulate, communicate and model core experiences, values and principles of Friends, such as the direct experience of God, the miracle of the gathered meeting, the meeting for worship for business, the balancing of individual leadings with corporate discernment, and the call to live and witness to our faith.

Discernment continues through 1997 as we work at all levels to establish specific long-term program plans. Slowly, we see more clearly how FGC is being led to serve God by serving the Society of Friends.