144 We have searched
again for the meaning of membership in the Society of Friends. … We find some of that meaning in the concepts
of
responsibility and communion. … We are reminded that ours has
always
been a religion of experience, not of assent to a statement. Through
communion in the quiet meeting on the basis of spiritual inspiration
we
seek to know God and to know each other in that which is Eternal.
pacific yearly meeting, 1951
145
Entry into membership of the Religious Society of Friends is a public
acknowledgment of a growing unity with a community of people
whose worship and service reflect, however imperfectly, their perception
of
discipleship and their recognition of the work of the Holy Spirit
in the world.
to lima with love, london yearly meeting, 1987
146
Membership in the Society of Friends is membership in a particular
monthly meeting. One who joins Friends usually has experience
with a meeting for worship, and joins because that particular group
experience is meaningful, comfortable, or supportive. It can be
disillusioning to discover later that other meetings are not exact
copies, and
that all kinds of variety exists.Why is it that we feel too fragile
to expose our
diversity? Diversity has been around a long time. Why else would
Isaac Penington write in 1659, “… and mark, it is not the
different practice from
corporate search and practice
testimony and experience one another that breaks the peace or unity,
but the judging of one another
because of different practices…”
heather c. moir, 1992
147
Membership should mean that both the Meeting and the member know
what they expect from each other and from other Friends.
It
is a covenant relationship. We have no creed, no doctrine, no single
statement of faith. How then do we know each other? By our deeds
and by
our commonalties, among them that we choose to worship together
regularly.
jane peers, 1996
148
Membership must be active. It should really be a verb. It is not
something you are but something you do. And it must be something
worth doing. It must deserve an investment of time, relationships,
money,
personal action, and self-sacrifice. It must be a part of your integrity
and it
must be a commitment that you expect to last a lifetime. The Society
of
Friends of Truth is destroyed by passive “membership.”
robert griswold, 2000