Are You a Quaker?

Season 4
Date: 1/26/2017
Views: 22,108
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You might be a Quaker and not even know it! Watch this video to find out.

Norma Wallman: If you want a direct relationship with God, then you probably have a good chance of being a Quaker. A lot of it is based, I think, on that: do you want the direct relationship with God?

Are You a Quaker?

Lidney Molnari: I think we’re all born Quakers. We just discover that in us. I think you’ll know you’re a Quaker when you visit a Quaker meeting. You’ll know you’re a Quaker when meeting for worship meets your condition. You’ll know you’re a Quaker when you come and visit and feel the love, feel the community, and feel the Spirit move. And in my experience, the Spirit moves within the silence.

How Do I Know I’m a Quaker?

Cheryl Speir-Phillips: Oh my goodness, that’s a great question! How do I know if I might be a Quaker? Well, often Quakers have a sense of longing for peace and justice issues—for a spiritual connection.

Ray Treadway: I think one way of knowing whether you’re a Quaker is whether it feels right for you, and whether it speaks to your condition.

Julie Peyton: You might be a Quaker if you’ve tried a lot of spiritual paths, or even one spiritual path, and it wasn’t transformative. So you try something else, and it’s not transformative. And maybe you get a whisper, “Hey, the Quakers are doing it differently.” And you’re willing to give yet another shot to find something that can be transformative.

Sara Hernandez: Are you the kind of person who enjoys taking a moment of quiet to think through the issues in your life? Are you somebody who is committed to peace and caring for others and trying to make this a better world for all human beings?

Brenda Cox: I think that if you wonder if you’re a Quaker, I think the best way to find that out would be to go to Quaker churches and see if you fit in. There, again, Quakers are so diverse that you could probably fit into a Quaker church somewhere.

How to Find a Quaker Meeting

Lidney Molnari: So if you think you’re seeking to be part of a meeting for worship or part of a Quaker church, just google it! Or go to Friends World Committee on Consultation, which has lists of Friends meetings and Friends churches around the country and the world.

Norma Wallman: When you look on the web and you see that there are different kinds of Quaker worship—we have programmed, unprogrammed—and you are puzzled by that, then we say, “Come and see!”

Ray Treadway: If you came to our meeting, we would want to be sure you understood that while our meeting worships in silence and expectant waiting for those who want to share spoken ministry, that you might go down the street to another Friends meeting who would have hymns and someone who would give a pastoral message. So not all Quakers are alike, and you may find that you prefer ours, or you may find that you prefer some other form of worship.

Sara Hernandez: So which one to pursue? I would say it’s a question of where you feel you are at in your own religious search. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to try both of them.

Julie Peyton: The temptation is to say, “come and see,” but I would say, “try it.” The fundamental thing of being a Quaker is, does it work? If it doesn’t work, try something else; try it differently, but keep trying.

Your First Experience

Cheryl Speir-Phillips: I would hope your experience as a newcomer would be to feel embraced and welcomed and not afraid.

Lidney Molnari: I would hope your experience at Quaker meeting would be what you need, would be what you’re seeking.

Julie Peyton: If you were to come visit West Hills on any given Sunday, I would hope that you would first feel welcomed, and that there would be no pressure put on you, or that you would not feel any pressure to do or to be anything. The expectation—and this is a spoken expectation at the beginning—is that you will know that your presence there has an impact on us, or certainly can have an impact. You can be part of that meeting that day. You may be called upon by God to stand and say something to all of us. But just your presence, listening with us, is an important thing.

Brenda Cox: We do especially try to welcome you when you walk through the door, make sure that we introduce ourselves. Then, when the service is over, you’ll often be invited to someone’s house for a meal. If you have any questions, we’re happy to answer them. Nobody’s going to push anything down your throat. If you want to come back, you’re welcome. If you don’t, we’re sad, but that’s okay. It’s your decision.

Sara Hernandez: Because each meeting is different, that one first experience will not give you a clear sense of the Quaker experience: the religious search of the Quakers. It helps to come more than one time, really get a feel for the community and the religious experience itself.

What to Know Before Visiting

Ray Treadway: When you first come to our meeting, we’d want to be sure that you realized that we wouldn’t have hymns, we wouldn’t have a pastor, that we’d be sitting in silence. And we know that for someone who, perhaps like yourself, who’s never experienced this, it might seem a little strange, but we have found that many newcomers have a sense of belonging, have a sense of being in the presence of God.

Norma Wallman: I think that we want you to come with a curiosity, with a longing to know what the Quaker experience is about. If you come with that earnest desire to find out about Quakerism—to experience—then the knowledge part of it, you can look all that up later.

Lidney Molnari: What I would want you to know about Quakerism is the fundamental belief there is that of God in everyone. That belief is what attracted me to Quakerism at the beginning.

Sara Hernandez: So to me the value of Quaker meeting is precisely that centeredness and trying to find peace within. It’s not easy. It’s a job in a way, to be able to find that inner peace. Many times I find myself thinking about all the problems I have: how am I going to resolve this issue? So it helps me meditate, but ideally, the best meeting is when I can really find that center and be quiet, internally peaceful.

Watch on QuakerSpeak: quakerspeak.com/are-you-a-quaker/