Invitation to a Conversation
Geoffrey Durham said it beautifully in 2011: 'You don’t get converted into a Quaker you gradually come to realise that you are one’.
https://quakersinswlondon.org/files/quakermembershipleaflet_web.pdfYou might find that meeting for worship can be something more than just a quiet hour in a busy week, that the Quaker testimonies fit rather well with your personal beliefs and that maybe you can even see something of God in even the most annoying people. You might find something else - that you have found your spiritual home. For some people this may happen surprisingly quickly, for others it may take years.
So then there’s the question of membership. After all why bother, especially if it means that you think that you are going to have to serve on endless committees and be expected to do some dogsbody tasks?
The spiritual answer is that many friends making the commitment to membership find that it makes as real difference to their lives. It strengthens their spiritual grounding and confidence and their sense of belonging to our Quaker community. The more practical answer is that there is no requirement for you to contribute more of your time or financial resources than you may be doing already or you feel comfortable with.
A growing membership though does strengthen and underpin our community, and helps us to build diversity and resilience. None of us have all of the answers and everyone is on a journey and the more that we can help each other on that road the easier it will be.
It all starts with a conversation, or better still reading our leaflet about membership to understand the process, which is far from daunting.
If you are an attender please take a look, after all everyone needs Friends.