These Voices, Advices and Queries have yet to be approved by Baltimore Yearly Meeting. Your comments to the Faith and Practice Revision Committee would be appreciated.
13. Outreach
Outreach: Queries
How does your life witness to your Quaker faith?
In what ways do you reach out to new attendees
and encourage their exploration of Quakerism as a spiritual path?
How does your meeting convey Quaker faith and practice
to the wider community?
Outreach: Advices
What do we mean when we repeat Fox's admonition to
"Let your life speak."? This simple sentence reminds us that it is
our lives, not our words, that speak most reliably about who we
are and what we believe. Our lives are our ministry, not the
specific acts we think of as "official" ministry, such as speaking in
meeting, following leadings, or carrying out our roles on committees.
Jesus teaches us not to hide our lights; but to let them shine _ as
the gospel song would have it, "every day, every way." Outreach
in this broad sense is not something we think about and plan;
rather, it simply happens as we walk our paths in the world, lighted
by "that of God" within us.
Advancement and outreach are natural and integral
aspects of the Quaker way of life. Realizing that we are all children
of God means that there is an infinite opportunity to search for
God in our relations with others. Our fellowship begins, grows, and
is nurtured in home and meeting. It reaches greater fulfillment
as we carry our love of God and humankind to our
relationships with persons in the wider community of which our Meeting is
a part, with members of other Meetings, and with all persons
whom we meet.
Outreach does not seek to change or persuade another but
to help each individual to discover the light within - to unveil what
is already there. Outreach is not a monologue, but a dialogue
- an adventure undertaken in the spirit of a musical
improvisation with many instruments. Take time to learn about other
people's experiences of the Light and, as you learn, give freely from
your own. Respect the experiences and opinions of others, but do
not be afraid to say what you value and to speak with
conviction. Welcome the diversity of culture, language, and expressions
of faith among Friends and members of other faiths.
Outreach also includes being open to others who may
be tentatively "reaching in" to explore the Quaker faith. The
sense of welcome is expressed in countless small details: the coffee
is warm, the biscuits are good, the potluck is plentiful, and
people say "hi." Most importantly, when someone walks in and
asks, "What do Quakers believe?" it is the meeting's task to be
sure that they are likely to get a well-informed answer from
anyone they might approach.
Outreach: Voices
Let all nations hear the sound by word or writing. Spare
no place, spare no tongue nor pen, but be obedient to the Lord
God; go through the world and be valiant for the truth upon
earth; tread and trample all that is contrary under.... Be patterns,
be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations, wherever
you come, that your carriage and life may preach among all sorts
of people, and to them. Then you will come to walk cheerfully
over the world, answering that of God in every one; whereby in
them you may be a blessing, and make the witness of God in them
to bless you.
George Fox, 1656
Indeed if one has been visited by a direct sense of
inward presence, he is driven to tell everyone who will listen to
him. Strange and unendurable irony _ that Friends who speak so
much about the Inward Light should so timidly hide their own
light under a bushel! The time has come to preach the faith we have
resolved to practice. If we have good news for our brothers,
and I believe we do, let us shout it from the housetops! Let us learn
to be publishers of truth about our faith as well as our social concerns.
John Yungblut, 1974
This story is told of a German woman living in Cologne
in 1946. Her husband had been killed during the war and she
was left with two small children. Their home was a damp
basement beneath the ruins of a house... It is no wonder that she was
a cynical and embittered woman when the Service
Committee Workers found her. They were of the same nationality that
she had been taught to hate, the ones who had killed her
husband. But these people brought clothing, medicine, and food and
above all sympathy and understanding. "Why do you do it?" she
asked, and they tried to tell her something of the spirit that had
sent them forth. Finally with tears in her eyes she exclaimed: "This
is too good to keep to yourselves — Oh, why don't you preach
what you practice!"
John Hobart, 1954
The sharing of our spiritual values with others, from
our neighbors to the larger world, makes our outreach
and advancement activities meaningful. Without spiritual
motivation, our witness falls short.
Baltimore Yearly Meeting, 1988
We dimly see that this Gospel, before it has finished with
us, will turn our lives upside down and inside out. Our
favourite Quaker vice of caution holds us back. We have much more
to learn before we are ready to teach. It is right that we have
much to learn; it is right to recognise the heavy responsibility
of teaching; but to suppose that we must know everything
before we can teach anything is to condemn ourselves to
perpetual futility.
George B Jeffery, 1934
Our point of departure is not a mighty proclamation of
Truth, but the humble invitation to sit down together and share
what we have found, in the spirit of Woolman setting out on his Indian
journey, `that I might feel and understand their life, and
the spirit they live in, if haply I might receive some instruction
from them.' We approach them without pressure to accept a
statement, or with proselytising zeal, but with `love as the first motion'.
Harold Loukes, 1955
Outreach is simply the process of making Quakerism
available to those who are seeking, to those who may find value in
its process. Whether these people become Quaker is of
no consequence to the person who conducts true outreach.
True outreach is an act of spiritual hospitality. It is an act of service
to others to find and take what they need so they can find that
of God in themselves and others.
Barry Crossno, 2005
Outreach is the natural result of the second
great commandment that we love our neighbors as ourselves. It
grows out of the spiritual attitude of caring and can take many
forms, limited only by our imagination.
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Outreach Ideabook
Use hospitality one to another without grudging. As
every person has received the gift, even so minister the same one
to another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
I Peter 4: 9-10
My new acquaintance was told by my friend that I walked
a Quaker path. The acquaintance's face lit up. "What is
that?" she asked. For the next hour she peppered me with
questions about the Quaker path. I could not evade or sidetrack her.
She was intense. At the end she exclaimed, "If I had known all
of this twenty years ago, I would have lived a different life!" I
sat stunned, moved, elated, and saddened all at the same
time… She had heard of Quakers all her life, but she never met a
Quaker that would explain what it meant. To borrow and butcher a
phrase from the Bible: it's time to stop hiding our light under a bushel.
Barry Crossno, 2005
Why have we been reluctant to share our faith? Has
our message lost its value? Certainly not. How is it then that
Friends retreated from a very active, prophetic kind of outreach,
making their beliefs public at the risk of life, limb, and liberty, to
our current position where outreach is low on our list of
priorities, even actively opposed by some? For when we place a low
priority on outreach we suggest either that our message isn't
that important, or that somehow the rest of the world
couldn't appreciate it, or that Quakerism is only for the select few.
Outreach Handbook of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting
These Voices, Advices and Queries have yet to be approved by Baltimore Yearly Meeting. Your comments to the Faith and Practice Revision Committee would be appreciated.
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