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 lectionary texts present the familiar vision of the peaceable kingdom: a place of harmonious coexistence of those who might seem like “natural” enemies. This is the place where God perfectly enacts just rewards and punishments, perfect winnowing. We get a taste of this Reign of God as we live in harmony with one another.
Read MoreDuring this time of Advent preparation for the birth of Jesus, I offer you a message of hope. This is a hope embodied in the spirit and will of all those who refuse to submit to the forces of oppression, violence and injustice, to the structures of domination, colonialism and foreign occupation. This is a hope embodied in truth-telling — in a Truth that is eternal.
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.