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include people of all ages? Do we involve them in the workings of the meeting: committees,
planning and running activities including business meetings?
Do we try to keep our business meetings from being "dull, boring, and uninteresting"? Do our adults know our young people as individuals, not just as a collective group of "them" or as "so-and-so's children"? Are we really Friends? Is there joy in our worship, business, first day school, and other activities? Do we celebrate together? --New York Yearly Meeting, 1979 |
Specifically, through a realization of the living presence of God, religious education should enlarge and enrich our lives in such areas of experience as worship, the world of nature, the Bible, the life and teachings of Jesus, the history and testimonies of Quakers, the examples of other great religious leaders, the work and play of the meeting, and sharing with other peoples.
Meetings often appoint a religious education committee. This committee, or the monthly meeting on ministry and counsel, provides guidance and suit able material for classes for children, young persons, and adults. Meeting retreats and conferences provide times to grow spiritually and to expand awareness of the ways of Friends in other places and of people of other faiths.
RESPONDING TO THAT OF GOD IN THE CREATION
"The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof." All things are parts of God's creation: the air and sky, rocks and minerals, animals and plants, the human race, the order of the universe. All natural resources are God's gifts, to be held and used by us as a sacred trust.
Our growing knowledge of ecological processes teaches us that abuse of this trust threatens not only our own health and welfare, but the integrity of the earth itself. Economic power made possible by the exploitation of God's natural gifts dominates