The book of James in the Bible says, ‘Real religion is to reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight and guard against corruption from the godless world’ (Jas. 1:27, The Message). Because being a Quaker is more of a practical craft than a matter of doctrine or an academic subject,3 becoming a Quaker comes from apprenticeship in doing real service and from being in worship together. We have to practise doing Quakerism to get it. Quaker meetings need to organise themselves to offer their members real work experience. These experiences might include:

These activities are all part of Quaker religious education. They build the spiritual and community-oriented thoughtfulness muscles we all need. Real spiritual formation comes from real work, whether that work looks more ‘spiritual’ or more ‘practical’. Some of these ‘real work experiences’ may be formal, such as serving on a committee or signing up to perform a task such as greeting newcomers or cleaning up the kitchen, while others may be informal: newer people can feel included and begin learning when a Friend asks for their help setting up or helping recruit people to offer meals for families with new babies.

Being in worship — those hours on the benches — this is also a necessary part of formation in being a Quaker. It doesn’t matter to me which kind of Quaker worship you practise — that is a matter of personal taste and local custom. No amount of Sunday school, or reading about worship and prayer, can replace the actual practice. It isn’t easy, but it is what works. Real formation comes from real work.

You may have heard the saying, ‘Live up to the Light that you have and more will be granted thee’.4 We need to live up to the Light we already have.

A few years ago, Carl Magruder from Pacific Yearly Meeting gave a talk about Earthcare at Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting. It was not published afterwards, but what I remember most from his speech is that he pointed out that Quakers are a people in pain. We know a lot about how we need to be changing, how our economy, our environmental practices, our forms of living need to change. We hurt because we don’t do as well as we know. Compact fluorescent lightbulbs and Priuses aren’t enough. Our own hypocrisy is causing us so much pain that we are unable to respond effectively to other people’s needs. We have to live up to the Light we already have.

It’s not that we don’t know what to do. It’s that what we need to do would be hard, and we don’t think we can do it. It’s like when G. K. Chesterton wrote in 1910, ‘The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried’.5 Are we living up to the Light that we have been given? Are we becoming the Quakers the world needs?

There are a few people who have a leading to do work halfway across the world. But for Quakers today, especially if you can’t do everything you used to do or aspire to do, I suggest focussing very locally: local politics, local environmental issues, local economy, local education, local racial justice, building local community in and around your meetinghouse. This will make the most impact on the world. By being the Quakers that our families need, that our churches need, that our neighbourhoods need — those are the Quakers the world needs.

This is also key to outreach to the likely audience for our meetings. Being visible at the school board meeting or community event is one way to prevent people from saying, ‘I thought Quakers were all dead’.

I repeat: spiritual formation comes from doing the work.

If we are practising our Quaker skills, then reading Quaker materials is also useful. Reading Quaker materials at home, online, from the meeting library — these can all help us discern our vocation and to learn what others have already learned and written about — what is hard, what helps, how to take it into daily life. We have lots of resources nowadays. Books and podcasts and magazines and blogs all give us access to a wider conversation on how to be a Quaker — with Friends who went before us, and with fellow practitioners today who don’t live nearby.

Discussing what you’ve read with Friends, either in a local small group or an online community, will help broaden your knowledge of what is available, help you sift through the information overload, and help you incorporate that learning into your own practice. We need to talk about our Quaker practice: in small groups, over coffee after worship, or with a friend you go to the movies with.

The Thursday night study group in my longtime community of San Francisco Monthly Meeting made a huge impact on my spiritual life, some from the Quaker books we read, but mostly from the engagement with other practising Friends. Even if it’s a really small group, studying together is good for the individual and it is good for the community to nurture these relationships between books and Friends.

Reflecting on our practice doesn’t only come from reading. Some of it comes from prayer and time in meeting for worship. What is God asking of us in worship? Am I feeling a nudge to spend more time in prayer? Or to be on time for worship more often? Hold your own practice in the Light during worship and listen for what God might have to say to you about it.

Some reflection comes from formal or informal eldering relationships. I have benefited from eldering received and pondered. Some people have a gift for speaking a word in season, for suggesting a pamphlet to read, for encouraging a timid start, or noticing a tension, or calming an impatient spirit. Friends also have tools such as meetings for clearness or anchor committees to support one another as we reflect and listen to God about personal decisions or ministry leadings. Gentle and honest conversation about our practice holds the potential of leading us directly to our Inner Teacher. Reflecting on our practice improves our practice.

In our spiritual lives, like anything else, we need to have exciting experiences and we need to set up the chore charts and pay the bills. The view from the spiritual ‘mountain top’ comes after a long climb up and before a long climb down, with each step representing a small practice, backed by planning and taking care of practical matters. As a community, we need to receive the gift of enthusiasm from people who have been to the mountaintop and have come back with new stories and new visions that we haven’t seen. Every community needs regular infusions of excitement that re-create our sense of urgency and commitment. But if adrenaline becomes a steady drip without which the group refuses to function, that’s not healthy either. We need rhythms of rest and re-creation.

We also have to balance family commitments, ministry leadings, and ways we earn a pay cheque in different proportions at different times in our lives. Sometimes they overlap, and sometimes they don’t. This is similar to how sometimes being a mother is a completely fulfilling ministry, and sometimes it’s just doing the laundry. Sometimes we get paid for doing God’s work, and sometimes we have to find the opportunities to pay attention to God as best we can in whatever work we can get paid for in order to pay the rent or the college tuition. Not everyone in our meetings may earn a living wage, and finding time to volunteer in one’s meeting may not be doable for everyone. Our meetings can be attentive to this, offering permission and spaces in which people can practise rest, slowing down, and just being present together. We need those rhythms of rest AND re-creation.

Many Quaker groups are relatively small and perhaps geographically distant from other Friends, so it can be challenging to take action on some of the things we care about, particularly on large issues, or on niche issues no one else in our meeting feels particularly called to. It can be important to make connections across Friends meetings so that we know we are not alone, and to multiply our small efforts through knowing others are taking similar action.

As I mentioned above, I have recently completed over a decade of working with FWCC Section of the Americas. One of the major purposes of FWCC is to help Friends to find others who care about what they care about. FWCC is an association of Quaker regional bodies, which we call yearly meetings, across all the branches of Friends, from Evangelical to Holiness to Conservative to liberal and unprogrammed. FWCC does not advocate specific policies or actions. This global network organises opportunities to practise talking with other kinds of Friends. We build on-ramps to societal conversations and channels where people meet. The Friends World Committee is not a social action agency; instead, its purpose is to build up the family of Quakers so they can go out and be the Quakers the world needs. Getting involved in FWCC is one way to connect with Friends, to learn from them about what actions they are taking or where they’re feeling led, and to reflect together on what it looks like to be the Quakers the world needs in this time.

In conclusion: How do we become the Quakers the world needs?

We have considered these four ways to help ourselves and one another become the Quakers the world needs:

We can become the Quakers the world needs through practising Quakerism through theology and covered dishes—through spiritual and practical actions each day, inside and outside our meetings. We can grow in spiritual formation through exercising our muscles of care for each other in large and small ways, through listening, learning, and reflecting together, and through creating space and permission for rest and re-creation. As we practise the rhythms of being Quakers in our local settings, we can also join together in larger groups to speak out and embody peace and justice and to build strong spiritual communities that resist injustices in our time.

To the Friends who are reading today, I say, we are all called to be the Quakers the world needs.

To all of you, I say, may God bless you in your continued search for the spiritual ground of Quaker social action.