Within the Religious Society of Friends, a clerk is someone responsible for various administrative functions within a meeting for worship for church affairs or meeting for worship with attention to business. The clerk is responsible for recording the discernment which is arrived at during such a meeting, in a minute, and is responsible for sending and receiving correspondence on behalf of the meeting. Within some branches of the Religious Society of Friends, the clerk may also create an agenda and may facilitate the meeting.
Friends record minutes contemporaneously, with each minute written during the meeting for worship for business. At the end of each item, the clerk will present a draft minute and ask the meeting if the minute is acceptable. The final minute will only be recorded when all Friends present feel that the minute is an accurate record of what the "sense of the meeting" was. In Britain, when members of the meeting wish to indicate their approval of a minute, they will sometimes say "hope so".
In some Quaker groups, there may be more than one person performing clerking roles, for example the role of facilitating the meeting may be separate from recording minutes. In this case different names may be given to the different clerks - e.g. co-clerk, recording clerk, presiding clerk, assistant clerk, reading clerk, epistle clerk, or correspondence clerk.
Some Friends groups, particularly ones who do not have regular minuted meetings for worship for business, may have some of the roles usually carried out by a clerk carried out by a correspondent (who is responsible for sending and receiving correspondence on behalf of the meeting) or a convenor (who is responsible for bringing people together for a meeting - this is a term often used for someone who co-ordinates a committee).
In Quaker meetings, there are often committees and temporary working groups that perform duties and oversee activities of the meeting. Most committees will have their own clerk or convenor who will convene meetings and record minutes.
Bibliography
Hickey, Damon D (1987). "Unforeseen Joy" Serving a Friends Meeting as Recording Clerk. Greensboro: North Carolina Yearly Meeting of Friends. p.35pp. ISBN0-942727-16-9.
Morley, Barry (1993). BEYOND CONSENSUS: Salvaging Sense of the Meeting. Wallingford, PA: Pendle Hill Publications. p.32pp. ISBN0-87574-307-2.
Redfern, Keith (1994). Before the Meeting: A Handbook for Clerks. London: Quaker Home Service. p.28pp. ISBN0-85245-256-X.
Sharman, Cecil W (1983). Servant of the Meeting: Quaker business meetings and their Clerks. London: Quaker Home Service. p.47pp. ISBN0-85245-172-5.
Watson, William Braasch (1996). Before Business Begins: Notes for Friends Meeting Recording Clerks and Recorders. Mosher Book and Tract Committee of New England Yearly Meeting. p.59pp.
Friends General Conference (FGC) is an association of Quakers in the United States and Canada made up of 16 yearly meetings and 12 autonomous monthly meetings. "Monthly meetings" are what Quakers call congregations; "yearly meetings" are organizations of monthly meetings within a geographic region. FGC was founded in 1900.
The views of Quakers around the world towards homosexuality encompass a range from complete celebration and the practice of same-sex marriage, to the view that homosexuality is sinfully deviant and contrary to God's intentions for sexual expression. The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) is a historically Christian religious movement founded in 17th-century England; it has around 350,000 members. In Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, many Quakers are supportive of homosexual relationships, while views are divided among U.S. meetings. Some Conservative Friends and Holiness Friends, both of which have retained traditional Quaker practices such as plain dress, along with Evangelical Friends, view homosexual acts as sinful. The majority (52%) of Quakers live in Africa, and though views may differ, the Kenyan Church of Friends does not support homosexual relationships.
Meeting for Sufferings is an executive committee of Britain Yearly Meeting, the body which acts on behalf of members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Great Britain and the Crown Dependencies. It has about 200 members who meet five times a year to make decisions when the Yearly Meeting is not in session.
The Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain, also known as Britain Yearly Meeting, is a Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in England, Scotland, Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. It is the national organisation of Quakers living in Britain. Britain Yearly Meeting refers to both the religious gathering and the organisation. "Yearly Meeting", or "Yearly Meeting Gathering" are usually the names given to the annual gathering of British Quakers. Quakers in Britain is the name the organisation is commonly known by.
Quaker weddings are the traditional ceremony of marriage within the Religious Society of Friends. Quaker weddings are conducted in a similar fashion to regular Quaker meetings for worship, primarily in silence and without an officiant or a rigid program of events, and therefore differ greatly from traditional Western weddings. In some respects a Quaker marriage resembles a common-law marriage.
The testimony of peace is the action generally taken by members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) for peace and against participation in war. Like other Quaker testimonies, it is not a "belief", but a description of committed actions, in this case to promote peace, and refrain from and actively oppose participation in war. Quakers' original refusal to bear arms has been broadened to embrace protests and demonstrations in opposition to government policies of war and confrontations with others who bear arms, whatever the reason, in the support of peace and active nonviolence. Due to this core testimony, the Religious Society of Friends is considered one of the traditional peace churches.
The Religious Society of Friends began as a proto-evangelical Christian movement in England in the mid-17th century in Ulverston. Members are informally known as Quakers, as they were said "to tremble in the way of the Lord". The movement in its early days faced strong opposition and persecution, but it continued to expand across the British Isles and then in the Americas and Africa.
The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, or simply the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, or PYM, is the central organizing body for Quaker meetings in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States area, including parts of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey.
Young Friends General Meeting (YFGM) is the national organisation for young Quakers in the United Kingdom. The name refers both to the organisation and to the General Meetings which are held in February, May and October each year, in various Quaker Meeting Houses in Britain. The organization also publishes a tri-annual magazine entitled The Young Quaker.
Yearly Meeting is an organization composed of constituent meetings or churches of the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers, within a geographical area. The constituent meetings are called Monthly Meetings in most of the world; in England, local congregations are now called Area Meetings, in Australia Monthly Meetings are called Regional Meetings. "Monthly" and "Yearly" refer to how often the body meets to make decisions. Monthly Meetings may be local congregations that hold regular Meetings for Worship, or may comprise a number of Worship Groups. Depending on the Yearly Meeting organization, there may also be Quarterly Meetings, Half-Yearly Meetings, or Regional Meetings, where a number of local Monthly Meetings come together within a Yearly Meeting.
In the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), a monthly meeting or area meeting is the basic governing body, a congregation which holds regular meetings for business for Quakers in a given area. The monthly meeting is responsible for the administration of its congregants, including membership and marriages, and for the meeting's property. A monthly meeting can be a grouping of multiple smaller meetings, usually called preparative meetings, coming together for administrative purposes, while for others it is a single institution. In most countries, multiple monthly meetings form a quarterly meeting, which in turn form yearly meetings. Programmed Quakers may refer to their congregation as a church.
Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members of these movements are generally united by a belief in each human's ability to be guided by the inward light, "answering that of God in every one". Friends have traditionally professed a priesthood of all believers inspired by the First Epistle of Peter. They include those with evangelical, holiness, liberal, and traditional Quaker understandings of Christianity, as well as Nontheist Quakers. To differing extents, the Friends avoid creeds and hierarchical structures. In 2017, there were an estimated 377,557 adult Quakers, 49% of them in Africa.
A Book of Discipline may refer to one of the various books issued by a Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, setting out what it means to be a Quaker in that Yearly Meeting. The common name for this book varies from one Yearly Meeting to another and includes Book of Discipline, Faith and Practice, Christian Faith and Practice, Quaker Faith and Practice, Church Government and Handbook of Practice and Procedure. Each Book of Discipline is updated periodically by each Yearly Meeting according to the usual practice of decision making within the Religious Society of Friends.
Edward Hyslop Milligan, also known as Ted Milligan, was a Quaker historian and the former librarian at Friends House, London. He was the author of The Biographical Dictionary of British Quakers in Commerce and Industry 1775-1920, which includes entries for some 2,800 people. He received the 2009 Besterman/McColvin Award for this work and an Honorary degree from Lancaster University The ‘’Biographical Dictionary’’ was reviewed in ‘’Archives’’, ‘’The Friend’’, ‘’Friends Quarterly’’, ‘’Quaker Studies’’, ‘’Quaker History’’, and ‘’The Journal of the Friends Historical Society’’.
A Recorded Minister was originally a male or female Quaker, who was acknowledged to have a gift of spoken ministry.
Isaac Crewdson was a minister of the Quaker meeting at Hardshaw East, Manchester. He wrote A Beacon to the Society of Friends, a work published in 1835 which had a schismatic effect on English Quakerism.
Quaker Life is a central department of the Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain, the national organisation of Quakers in England, Wales, Scotland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. Its work is to develop the spiritual life of Quakers in Britain, and the running of Quaker Meetings within Britain.
John Lampen is a Quaker peace educator and writer. He is married to Diana Lampen. In 1987, he gave the Swarthmore Lecture, entitled Mending Hurts.
The Quakers have had a presence in Canada since 1670, when Charles Bayly was sent to be the governor of the Hudson's Bay Company. Early Quaker settlements were attempted in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and at Farnham in Quebec in the late 1700s. Permanent communities were realised at Adolphustown on the Bay of Quinte and at the same time at Pelham in the Niagara District before 1800. Quakers immigrated to Canada from New York, the New England States, and Pennsylvania.
The Quaker business method or Quaker decision-making is a form of group decision-making and discernment, as well as of direct democracy, used by Quakers, or 'members of the Religious Society of Friends', to organise their religious affairs. It is primarily carried out in meetings for worship for business, which are regular gatherings where minutes are drafted, to record collective decisions.
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