Facing the Future

A Foundadion for Revival

Friends feel a need to respond strongly to the times we find ourselves in. Immigrants are locked away without due process; diversity initiatives are squashed; and America First isolationism is on the rise. There is a sense that the world needs Quaker theology and practice more now than at most times in history. We want to be able to bring peace and love to our communities.

The reality is that Friends find themselves badly prepared to respond. While our theology and practice are as relevant as ever, the past few decades have seen massive decline in our numbers, which greatly reduces our capacity to respond in the way the world needs us to respond.

Twenty-four percent of Quaker meetings closed from 2010 to 2020 according to Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC). Looking at the numbers more closely, we see that 38,000 of the 94,000 Friends in the United States are a part of Evangelical Friends Church International, a group that now refuses to officially affiliate with virtually any other Friends group in North America. 

I believe the situation is worse. Are monthly meetings’ statistics accurate? Do the numbers skew high or low? From experience, I suspect that some of those numbers might be inflated by as much as a half. These statistics don’t factor in the effects of COVID. Have meetings thrived through the challenges of the pandemic? I suspect the real number of Quakers in the United States is as few as 30,000 people.

Of those Quakers who remain, those in programmed yearly meetings have been riven by divisions, leading to split after split. While there are some remnants of the convergent movements of the 2000s and 2010s, there is little evidence of collaboration across branches, virtually every Quaker meeting and organization struggles with major structural issues and a lack of staff or volunteers.

The situation of Friends is not a good one. We must always turn to God and settle into the Spirit to find way forward, but we also must sit down and think strategically about our situation. We are experiencing significant decline, and I believe there are three areas that require immediate remedy, if we are to survive: the generational gap in our meetings, the fiscal cliff we are about to encounter, and the structural burdens our meetings carry.

The Situation

The generational gap among Friends is obvious. Visit any meeting, and you’ll find that there are more gray heads than young ones. We have belabored this issue for decades as the decline has continued. How can we bring in younger people? Where have all the families gone? Too often these questions never leave our meetinghouses. We have segregated ourselves by age to the point of not knowing how to relate to younger folks.

Less considered is the fiscal cliff that inevitably follows our generational gap: not only will there simply be fewer donors, but older generations came from a unique window of plenty. The numbers are complicated, but put simply, the baby-boom generation had lower costs and more wealth than Generation X or millennials at the same mileposts in life. Wealth inequality is increasing across the United States, especially in younger generations which experience more inequality than older generations.

A cliff is coming where our biggest givers will pass, and there will be fewer people with fewer resources to take their place. Unless Quakers end up with a disproportionate number of the well-to-do from younger generations—a challenge to our equality testimony in and of itself—we are likely to have significantly fewer resources in the near future.

The implications for the fiscal cliff go beyond the meetinghouse. Many larger Quaker organizations still rely to a huge extent on donations from Friends. None of our organizations are prepared to deal with the coming reduction in Friends who finance our work.

The structure of our organizations does not serve us well either. Quakers have long had a discomfort with paid leadership. There is a perception that this is only an attitude among unprogrammed Friends, but ask pastors of programmed meetings if they feel supported in their leadership. Uneasiness with leadership is common among Friends. 

Our volunteer pool will never be as large as it once was, even growth will not solve this problem. Early Friends’ community was most likely—and often almost exclusively—to be found at the church or meetinghouse; now the competition for community is infinitely more robust than in those days. 

Into the 1970s and 80s, when two-working-parent households were not yet the norm, there were more people with free time to support our meetings. Older Friends who would have retired into abundant free time are now much more likely to provide significant hours supervising grandchildren for busy working parents. With the majority of parents working there is less free time than ever. 

The benefits of these changes are immeasurable. Different kinds of community are good; women working has meant immense improvements for women; and older Friends spending more time with their grandchildren brings love to their lives. This situation, however, has made the structure of organizations untenable.

Even if we did cut back on the number of committees and boards in our organizations—a necessary task—we would not have the number of volunteers to do the revolutionary work we want to see from our communities. We cannot move forward without a solution to the lack of workers in the field.

Leading

At this point, Friends have experienced a mix of apathy and urgency about their situation for the better part of a century. The reality that we are now shrinking to the point of death, however, is largely ignored. Friends have long been concerned about decline, and this concern can even be used as a cover: Well, we’ve been talking about decline since 1950, which is as if to say, we haven’t died in that period, so who is to say we are near death now?

To my eyes, there is no longer a question of diminishment; we are greatly diminished and shrinking still. Responsible leaders and concerned Friends must confront the more-pressing question: not how can we grow but do we have a chance of survival? If we do have the chance to live, what does the Spirit of God demand of us that we might again have life?

An anxious spirit in our bodies is revealed when we continue to seek more data about our situation that has long been obvious. Howard Thurman stated, “Community cannot for long feed on itself; it can only flourish where always the boundaries are giving way to the coming of others from beyond them—unknown and undiscovered brothers.” We have focused on ourselves for too long and have been unable to reach out to our neighbors, especially those who are not from the upper-middle-class White communities from which Quakers have primarily drawn their members. Communities cannot shrink continually and thrive. There may be something to be said for small meetings, and growth may not be the measure of all things, but it is obvious now that we cannot shrink forever and live.

There is an inclination among Friends to focus on the positive, the good we do and the generosity of our current communities, but I do not believe this inclination has served us well or deepened our faithfulness to the Spirit’s call. 

While the love that comes from Spirit is good news for the world, an inherently optimistic message, our faithfulness to that love must be questioned. We are not spiritually or organizationally healthy. Faithful Friends must now keep us focused on the problem at hand and find a way forward; we must act quickly, if we are to survive. A faithful leader now is a leader who can share the urgency of our situation. Faithful Friends will focus on building the foundation for renewal.

Building the foundation for renewal will not be easy. Friends have discomfort with the remedies to our ailments. Strong Friends who are willing to weather the storm of criticism and complaint will be needed to continually speak the truth about the urgency of our situation. 

I believe our strategy must be threefold: a focus on new partnerships across branches, new initiatives to raise up a younger generation of Quaker leaders, and fundraising to create a safety net for Quaker communities in North America.

To survive we must work together. Right now, we are like three pieces of a net, each with gaps too large to catch any fish, each cast into the water and bringing little back. Only when our nets are woven together again can we begin to bring in the new life that we need. Each section of a net is strengthened by its connection to the other sections.

We need to free up and nurture younger leaders to reach new people. This requires a reconsideration of what leadership entails among Friends. We can’t reach younger generations of Friends without younger leaders. We need to admit that we are going to need to rely more heavily on paid, released ministry in the future, if we want to survive. People are not going to suddenly decide they have more time to commit; they don’t have more time or energy to give. Only by releasing young leaders for ministry can we get the new members we need to bring new life to our meetings.

Underpinning new initiatives for cross-branch partnerships and leadership development is a fundraising campaign to avert the fiscal cliff we are facing. We need to build up a safety net to make it possible to survive the coming decline. We need to connect with our donors and be clear about the situation: they have the opportunity to help Friends survive into the future. If we can’t build up funds to support a new wave of leaders and initiatives that connect the branches of Friends, there will be very few Friends left to connect.

Older generations have an opportunity and an obligation to preserve some hope of renewal by setting aside the resources to provide a foundation for renewal. Younger generations will need to seize these new opportunities to live into the Spirit and work on the foundation laid for them. All of us will have to come together to recognize the truth of our situation and respond with the urgency God demands of us.