Friends General Conference

Together we nurture the spiritual vitality of Friends

Fostering Community

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Queries

Are love and harmony within the Meeting community fostered by a spirit of open sharing?

What helps our Meeting build trust in one another?

How do we get to know one another in our spiritual community?

How do we make time in our lives for our Meeting?

How do our conflicts have the potential to enrich the life of our community?

Advices

The Meeting can consciously cultivate fellowship and community, and is enriched when all members and attenders participate actively. The working of the Spirit in our lives is expressed through ministry, pastoral caring for each other, and the example provided by lives lived in the Light. As we worship, work, and laugh together, we forge bonds of trust, understanding, and communication.

When need arises to address contentious issues, they then may be addressed openly and honestly. Conflict thus experienced can also build trust and intimacy. When resolution is not immediate, the Meeting can make room for different expressions of continuing revelation, while persisting in earnest search for unity. Convictions that might divide or disrupt a Meeting can, through God’s grace, help to make it creative and strong. The larger Quaker community has many resources that can help meetings address internal conflict.

Voices

The life of a religious society consists in something more than the body of principles it professes and the outer garments of organization which it wears. These things have their own importance: they embody the society to the world, and protect it from the chance and change of circumstances; but the springs of life lie deeper, and often escape recognition. They are to be found in the vital union of the members of the society with God and with one another, a union which allows the free flowing through the society of a spiritual life which is its strength.

William Charles Braithwaite, 1905

 

Where, then, can seeking men and women find a community in which meditation, worship, religious education of children, common undertaking and adventurous experiments, common festivals, and spiritual therapy are all going on, not as part of an expensive organized professional program, but as part of the informal natural life of a close religious fellowship?
Douglas V. Steere, 1940

Our belief in the universality of the Inner Light requires us to “walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in everyone” as George Fox urged. No human being is excluded from our sense of community, for we are led by our faith to view human beings as children of God rather than as stereotypes of cultures, nations, or ideologies. It is individual people with whom fellowship must be established, and each Friend must seek in the quiet of worship the personal strength to work at the establishment of community.
Baltimore Yearly Meeting, 1988

How can I participate in a fairer distribution of resources unless I live in a community which makes it possible to consume less? How can I learn accountability unless I live in a community where my acts and their consequences are visible to all? How can I learn to share power unless I live in a community where hierarchy is unnatural? How can I take the risks which right action demands unless I belong to a community which gives support? How can I learn the sanctity of each life unless I live in a community where we can be persons, not roles, to one another?
Parker J. Palmer, 1977

And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Leviticus 19:33-34 (KJV)

I believe that much could be accomplished by carefully planned intervisitation. There are highly gifted persons in a few meetings, who ought to circulate much more than is now the case. Their absence occasionally from their own meeting would throw the sense of responsibility on other members of it, which would have a wholesome effect, and they would bring fresh life and inspiration where they visited.
Rufus M. Jones, 1941

Friends who restrict their experience of the Society to their local Meeting are missing rich experiences of fellowship in the wider community. Quarterly, Halfyearly and Yearly Meetings as well as larger gatherings provide opportunities for Friends of all ages to broaden their experience of the Society and the circle of their spiritually-based friendships.
Baltimore Yearly Meeting, 1988

For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve
one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Galatians 5:13-14 (KJV)

The Inward Light is a universal light given to all men, religious consciousness itself being basically the same wherever it is found. Our difficulties come when we try to express it. We cannot express; we can only experience God. Therefore we must always remember tolerance, humility, and tenderness with others whose ways and views may differ from ours.
Pacific Yearly Meeting, 1953

It is not easy to find community and fellowship in the modern world. Many Friends view relationships within the local Meeting as similar to partial relationships established with people met regularly at work, at play, and in the neighborhood. It is perhaps too much to expect that we all will make the Meeting central to our lives. But unless the Meeting fellowship can be made to speak to something deep in our lives, our Society falls short of fulfilling the true spiritual needs of its members.
Baltimore Yearly Meeting, 1988

We all need other people to invite, amplify, and help us to discern the inner teacher’s voice for at least three reasons:
* The journey toward inner truth is too taxing to be made solo; lacking support, the solitary traveler soon becomes weary or fearful and is likely to quit the road.
* The path is too deeply hidden to be traveled without company; finding our way involves clues that are subtle and sometimes misleading, requiring the kind of discernment that can happen only in dialogue.
* The destination is too daunting to be achieved alone: we need community to find the courage to venture into the alien lands to which the inner teacher may call us.
Parker J. Palmer, 2004

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