The religious
practices of Friends are founded in direct communion with God and
the conviction that the Divine Light is accessible to
each person; yet it is one Light, one Truth. We wait with hearts
and minds open to the Divine so that Truth will be made known
among us.
Our corporate
search for God’s word is the heart of the Quaker
Meeting for Worship. We believe that God, the Light, the Truth, is
part of our being.We say, “there is that of God in everyone.” Truth
is continually revealed to us, often through a gathered mystical
experience.We learn to recognize the truth by experience.
We work
to develop a relationship between the individual and
the corporate body that allows inspiration and leadings to be tested
within the Meeting. In this unity, Friends find order and peace in
reconciling individual inspiration and corporate wisdom, enabling
us to choose right courses of action.
As
God is revealed to us individually and corporately, we are guided
in the right ordering of our lives. All Friends practices flow
from this faith in the revealed truth: our care for each other, our
governing structures and processes, our testimonies and witness to
the whole world.
Through
the personal experience of each seeker comes the Light necessary
for their guidance. Vocal ministry in a Friends Meeting
emerges from the direct relationship between the individual and the
Divine. Truth is tested, not by the degree to which it conforms to
dogma, but by its power to transform our lives and the lives
of others.
robert barclay, apology, 1676, 11: 7