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Do Our Children Know Enough About Quakerism to Play Quaker?
Beth Collea, Dover (NH) Friends Meeting
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There’s a new family at Quaker Meeting.
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We have a mix of intentional exploration and unstructured play.
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Children learn through play. They play school, they play house, they even play COVID, giving everyone shots. Do our children know enough about being Quaker to play Quaker? Children are fully spiritual beings. Meeting life needs to be as open and comprehensible to them as possible. Play is one important way in, especially for younger Friends.
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Dover (NH) Friends Children’s Meeting (First Day School or Sunday School) made a Quaker meeting dollhouse as a vehicle to explore our identity as Friends. The life of our meeting is our curriculum. We call it “What Quakers Do.” This idea rose when Mary Anna Feitler, Indiana, asked for help to find “I Am A Friend,” a vintage Quaker curriculum. The approach was wonderful but needed some updating and reimagining.
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Each week, we explore something from our inward journey and some aspect of our outward journey. We name the spiritual grounding of our actions. Holding it all lightly, we connect the inward and the outward, the personal and the gathered. The dollhouse is a delightful, concrete way to explore aspects of our Quaker life and journey that are abstract. Can we play our way to a foundation for Quaker faith formation?
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Powering Our Ministry—Expenses for 2022
(A Tour of our Work & Ministry for 2022 is below)
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Thank you for your support in 2022!
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We invested $26,848 in our ministry.
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One growing edge for 2023 is to share the fresh work already created much more widely.
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QREC is grateful for Michelle Kelley, our part-time accounts manager. Jonathan Vogel-Borne, our website designer, continues to encourage QREC with mentoring and technical assistance.
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Annual Conference—55%
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Communication/connections $1,616
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(phone minutes/data/VPNs)
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(tech mentor in LA and Africa)
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International Travel $2,795
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US Conference Travel $ 986
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Catholic Conference Center $6,606
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(inc. $3,500 in scholarships)
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We held our conference at the Catholic Conference Center in Hickory, NC, August 12-14. The QREC Steering Circle was clear that we needed to have an in-person component to our conference to begin to move beyond the pandemic isolation.
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Regional Gatherings
Africa & Latin America—27%
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African Oral History $ 600
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AFRICA-QREC Sunday $5,100
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School Teachers' Workshop
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QREC-Latin America $1,560
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QREC models servant leadership. We support international Friends, with funding and resources, as they request. We know they are the experts about what is needed in their local areas.
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Durham (NC) Friends have created RISE—Relationships, Integrity, and Sexual Embodiment. We supported a local Friend to write up their work. This is a uniquely Quaker approach and weaves in spiritual formation.
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Join us in empowering QREC's work in 2023
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Checks, made out to QREC, can be sent to Jane Jackson, QREC Treasurer, 35 Winchester Drive, Lexington, MA 02420. Or you can donate online by clicking the button below.
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And, ask your local meeting or Friends Church and Yearly Meeting to support our work that supports their ministry and outreach to families and Friends of all ages.
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A Tour of Last Year's Work and Ministry
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QREC is the hub of Quaker religious education resource and program development
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Our circle of practitioners numbers more than 700 and spans six continents. Your support, a lot of volunteer work, and generous funding of the Thomas H. and Mary William Shoemaker Fund empowered us to create of new materials, sponsor workshops in Latin America and Africa, and host our hybrid annual conference, and more.
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We are celebrating the completion of the Shoemaker Grant and all that it has made possible.
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Please consider making a donation to keep QREC strong and effective as we move into 2023.
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In 2022, QREC:
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Offered monthly online Conversation Circles on topics such as Plain, Blended, or Online Worship, Faith at Home, and much more. Sita Diehl writes summaries.
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Countered the negative impact of the pandemic by making $500 grants to Bolivian, Guatemalan, Salvadoran, and Cuban religious education communities of practice. We asked them to invest in what would encourage their members. Cuban Friends planned two workshops for Sunday School teachers.
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Cuban Sunday School Workshop
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African Quaker Sunday School teachers' workshop in Nairobi, April 2022
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AFRICA-QREC Sunday School Teachers' Weekend Workshop--April 1-3, 2022. Thirty-two Sunday School teachers gathered with seven presenters. Melinda Wenner Bradley zoomed in from Philadelphia offering a workshop on Godly Play®/Faith & Play™ Stories. It was held at Quaker Homes in Nairobi.
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QREC service and creativity also included:
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- Africa Quaker Archives Workshop--November 2022. This groundbreaking Quaker Faith Oral History Project gathers illustrative examples of Quaker faith guiding daily life. African Sunday School teachers began this project in order to use the stories of faith in their lessons.
- Developed Templates to Encourage Local/Regional RE Gatherings
- QREC Studio--fully customizable documents that support Quaker faith formation and outreach
- RISE Curriculum--Relationship, Integrity, and Sexual Embodiment. Created and honed at Durham (NC) Friends Meeting, QREC supported the curriculum write-up
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