From May 20-22, 2024, fifty Quaker pastors, their spouses and family members, from Western and Wilmington Yearly Meetings, New Association of Friends, and some unaffiliated Monthly Meetings, gathered for a retreat at Ohio’s Hueston Woods State Park.
Read MoreThis year’s Flourishing Friends cohort held its wrap-up and final retreat on May 4, hosted at Carmel Friends Meeting, north of Indianapolis. Flourishing Friends is a program of Friends United Meeting’s North American Ministries department. Facilitated by Scott Wagoner and Colin Saxton, the aim of the program is to give practical tools and coaching to congregations dedicated to assessing their health and tackling some of the challenges they are facing.
Read MoreThis Sunday’s lessons remind us that God’s nature is justice. In that sense, God has already lifted up the lowly. God has already brought down the powerful from their thrones. Signs of God’s activity are everywhere, as in Isaiah’s vision of the transformation of the land. “Say to those who are of a fearful heart, ‘Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God!’” Yet the vision is incomplete. We are like farmers—we must learn to wait.
Read MoreI often tell people that marriage is a lot like living in a war zone. I lived in the middle of a war zone once, in Southern Sudan, and experienced weeks days and weeks of normal, boring, everyday life—interspersed with moments of pure terror.
Read MoreThroughout our history, the people known as Friends (or Quakers) keep rediscovering an essential and enduring truth: There is one who speaks to our most basic needs and most significant hopes—Christ Jesus the Lord. Both individually and communally, we are learning to know and follow the Voice that guides us in the way we should go. Together, we seek to understand and obey that truth which sets us free. As a people, we share in the experience of that powerful life which makes all things new. Maybe you are searching for an authentic and transforming faith and community to call home—if so, come in and join us as we seek to know and follow Christ.
Friends United Meeting commits itself to energize and equip Friends through the power of the Holy Spirit to gather people into fellowships where Jesus Christ is known, loved, and obeyed as Teacher and Lord.