Mission

The Quaker Religious Education Collaborative (QREC) is a grassroots network of Friends holding a sense of stewardship for life-long Quaker faith formation through religious education. We include Friends from all branches of our international Quaker family. We welcome all Friends involved in religious education, forming a community of practice to share resources, skills, gifts, questions and insights, and to support each other in the ministry of Quaker faith formation.

An Introduction to the Quaker Religious Education Collaborative (QREC)

The Quaker Religious Education Collaborative is an international, cross-branch, grassroots network of Friends sharing a stewardship for lifelong Quaker faith formation through religious education. We formed in April 2014 and now serve more than 300 Friends in our network. We actively engage and support each other across languages and continents. We gather for regional and annual conferences and offer monthly Conversation Circles via an online conferencing platform. Please see our website, www.quakers4re.org, for our Resource Library and notes from our Conversation Circles.

Four essential elements shape our identity as the Quaker Religious Education Collaborative, and our interactions with each other and with the wider Quaker family.

1. Independence. We are independent of other large Quaker organizations. Thus, we may partner with any Friend or Quaker organization for specific projects, but we are not under their care or supervision. We are equally free to lay down active connections when a project reaches its conclusion. As individuals, we are free to hold affiliations with multiple Quaker organizations.
2. Equality. We come to this ministry as equals. We share the conviction that we are all both teachers and learners. We are non-hierarchical. While there are different roles we play in service to QREC, we actively try to minimize differences in power, access, or voice, especially resulting from access to technology. We make a conscious effort to lift up and empower younger practitioners.
3. Clarity of Purpose. We are a community of practice. We hold a primary stewardship for lifelong Quaker religious education. Additional areas of work must be directly connected to Quaker faith formation, for example, supporting Quaker families and parents. This clarity has helped us to maintain our independence and keep our vision sharp. It makes it easy to discern what is our work and what work belongs to someone else.
4. Faithfulness. Faithfulness is our Strategic Plan. We strive for a nimble and light-footed response to God’s leading. When faithfulness is the measure of our work, we can dare to be bold, we can release programs and patterns that have been completed or no longer serve, and we can partner with any Friend or Quaker organization that shares common purpose and sense of call.