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A meeting for worship is what the Religious Society of Friends (or "Quakers") call their church service. Different branches of Friends have different types of meetings for worship. A meeting for worship in English-speaking countries typically lasts an hour.
Unprogrammed worship is based on silence and inward listening to the Spirit, from which any participant may share a message. In unprogrammed meetings for worship, someone speaks when that person feels that God/Spirit/the universe has given them a message for others. After anyone speaks, several minutes are allowed to pass before anyone else speaks, to allow the message to be considered carefully. Friends (members of the Religious Society of Friends) do not answer or argue about others' messages during meeting for worship.
Many unprogrammed meetings follow worship with a time for participants to share. Some ask for joys and sorrows; others for something a person considered sharing during worship.
Pastoral meetings, as the name implies, have a pastor or minister whose job is to preach and provide pastoral care. They have programmed worship which includes many elements similar to Protestant services, such as a sermon and hymns. Many programmed meetings also include a time during the service for silent, expectant waiting and messages from the participants.
Some meetings have "semi-programmed" worship which combines elements of programmed worship along with a long period of unprogrammed worship.
Worship is showing regard with great respect, honor, or devotion. This may be encountered in religious settings. In such instances it may represent divine worship; reverence for a divine being or supernatural power. This activity may have other focuses, such as hero worship. Worship may involve one or more of activities such as veneration, adoration, praise, supplication, devotion, prostration, or submission. An act of worship can be performed as simple prayer or through elaborate ceremony, individually, in an informal or formal group, or by a designated leader. The focus of worship is ultimately honoring the subject in some manner.
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.
Friends United Meeting (FUM) is an association of twenty-six yearly meetings of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in North America, Africa, and the Caribbean. Its home pages states that it is "a collection of Christ-centered Quakers, embracing 34 yearly meetings and associations, thousands of local gatherings and hundreds of thousands of individuals". In addition there are several individual monthly meetings and organizations that are members of FUM; FUM's headquarters is in Richmond, Indiana, with offices in Kisumu, Kenya. Friends United Meeting is a member of the National Council of Churches in the United States of America.
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. The majority (52%) of Quakers live in Africa, and though views may differ, the Kenyan Church of Friends does not support homosexual relationships.
Inward light, Light of God, Light of Christ, Christ within, That of God, Spirit of God within us, Light within, and inner light are related phrases commonly used within the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) as metaphors for Christ's light shining on or in them. It was propagated by the founder of the Quaker movement, George Fox, who "preached faith in and reliance on 'inward light' ". The first Quakers were known to sit in silence and meditate on the words of the Bible until they felt the inward light of God shining upon them and the Holy Spirit speaking. The concept was highly important to early Quakers, who taught: "God reveals Himself within each individual's conscience and consciousness by the Holy Spirit, Christ Himself being the Light to illuminate man's sinfulness and lead in the way of truth and righteousness. ... this light is in all men by the grace of God to lead them to Christ, and that the same light will give daily guidance to the Christian."
A church service is a formalized period of Christian communal worship, often held in a church building. It often but not exclusively occurs on Sunday, or Saturday in the case of those churches practicing seventh-day Sabbatarianism. The church service is the gathering together of Christians to be taught the "Word of God" and encouraged in their faith. Technically, the "church" in "church service" refers to the gathering of the faithful rather than to the building in which it takes place. In most Christian traditions, services are presided over by clergy wherever possible. Styles of service vary greatly, from the Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Reformed, Roman Catholic, and Lutheran traditions of liturgical worship to informal worship characterized by certain free church traditions, common among Methodists and Baptists, that often combine worship with teaching for the believers, which may also have an evangelistic component appealing to backsliders and the non-Christians in the congregation. Quakers and some other groups have no formal outline to their services, but allow the worship to develop as the participants present feel moved. Most Christian denominations hold church services on the Lord's Day ; a number of traditions have mid-week Wednesday evening services as well. In some Christian denominations, church services are held daily, with these including those in which the seven canonical hours are prayed, as well as the offering of the Mass, among other forms of worship. In addition to this, many Christians attend services on holy days such as Christmas, Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, Ascension Thursday, among others depending on the Christian denomination.
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.
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.
There are about 300,800 members of the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers, in Africa. African Friends make up around 62% of Friends internationally, the largest proportion on any one continent. Kenya has the largest number of Quakers in a single nation – about 146,300 in the year 2012.
Latin America contains approximately 17.5% of the world's Quakers. Latin American Friends are concentrated in Bolivia and Central America. Most of these Friends are evangelical and are affiliated with Evangelical Friends Church International. Friends World Committee for Consultation organizes among them through the Comité de Amigos Latinoamericanos CoAL del Comité Mundial de Consulta de Los Amigos CMCA FWCC.
A testimony of equality is an act, usage, or course of conduct by a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) tending to assert or promote equality of persons, arising from the Friends' belief that all people are equal in the eyes of God. The word testimony describes the way that Friends testify or bear witness to their beliefs in their everyday life. A testimony is therefore not a belief, but is committed action arising out of Friends' religious experience. Testimony of equality has included Quakers' participating in actions that promote the equality of the sexes and races, as well as other classifications of people.
New England Yearly Meeting is a body of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) founded in 1661 and headquartered in Worcester, Massachusetts. It includes Friends from the New England region of the United States.
The Richmond Declaration was made by 95 Quakers in September 1887, at a conference in Richmond, Indiana. It was a declaration of faith, and although Quakers do not have a dogma or creed, the Richmond Declaration has been used as a standard by certain groups of Quakers, mainly Orthodox and Evangelical, ever since. The Declaration was "approved," "accepted," or "adopted" by the Orthodox Yearly Meetings of Indiana, Western, New England, New York, Baltimore, North Carolina, Iowa, and Canada. Among Orthodox Friends in North America, only Ohio and Philadelphia yearly meetings did not so act. The Friends United Meeting General Board reaffirmed the declaration as a statement of faith in February 2007. The Declaration appears in most books of discipline of Evangelical and Friends United Meeting yearly meetings.
Baltimore Yearly Meeting is a body of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) headquartered in Sandy Spring, Maryland that includes Friends from Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, and West Virginia. It is one of the oldest yearly meetings in North America, first meeting in May 1672. It is also the only Yearly Meeting in North America visited by George Fox, who visited after a trip to Barbados. Its Presiding Clerk is Stephanie Bean. Baltimore Yearly Meeting (BYM) is part of both Friends General Conference and Friends United Meeting –- two broader bodies of Friends. They are also part of Friends World Committee for Consultation and the Friends Peace Teams Project.
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 experience the light within or "answering that of God in every one". Some profess 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. There are also Nontheist Quakers, whose spiritual practice does not rely on the existence of God. 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.
Quakers are members of a Christian religious movement that started in England as a form of Protestantism in the 17th century, and has spread throughout North America, Central America, Africa, and Australia. Some Quakers originally came to North America to spread their beliefs to the British colonists there, while others came to escape the persecution they experienced in Europe. The first known Quakers in North America arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1656 via Barbados, and were soon joined by other Quaker preachers who converted many colonists to Quakerism. Many Quakers settled in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, due to its policy of religious freedom, as well as the British colony of Pennsylvania which was formed by William Penn in 1681 as a haven for persecuted Quakers.
Mother of God Community is a Catholic and ecumenical charismatic community located in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area of the United States. The Community office and grounds is located in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Under the Canon Law of the Catholic Church, the Community is recognized as a "private association of the faithful" with its governing statutes approved by the Archbishop of Washington. In addition the Community is a member of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal International Service (CHARIS) established in the Vatican by the Holy See. The Community is also a founding member of the Association of Ecclesial Movements and New Communities in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington as well as the North American Network of Charismatic Covenant Communities. Individual members of the Mother of God Community believe they are called to live out the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to grow in the knowledge of God through daily prayer, fellowship, evangelization, and service to the Church. Membership is open to Christians from all walks of life – families, couples, priests, and singles, college students, seminarians, and retired people. There are members and affiliate members, but only about a dozen members actually live in the Community's large residential house.
The Saylesville Friends Meetinghouse is an historic Quaker meetinghouse located at 374 Great Road within the village of Saylesville in the town of Lincoln, Rhode Island.
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 isione of the first form of group decision-making and discernment, as well as of Direct democracy, used by Quakers, or 'members of the Religious Society of Friends', since the sixteenth century, 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.