"How do meeting communities prepare and engage in active invitation to families and children? When a family walks through the door of a meeting, there are three sets of needs we should be prepared to support: the spiritual formation of their children, the spiritual...
Reverse Advent: For Families and RE Programs, An Activity to Teach the Spiritual Discipline of Reaching Out In December, young people and their families have an opportunity to connect a story of the season with service to a local food cupboard or shelter. While...
In 2016, when global warming left the entire city of La Paz without drinking water for weeks, the Friends International Bilingual Center (FIBC) seized the teachable moment to educate children about the crisis and what they could do to help. Through QREC, Friends in...
"A core aspect of most Religious Education (RE) curriculums involves finding out about faith communities and religious buildings. As a result, local schools often want to visit Quaker meeting houses to find out about our worship, our history and our way of life, as...
Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) has relaunched the World Quaker Day Website to celebrate the 5th annual day of international Quaker celebration. We have updated the look and feel of the site and added more resources to help Friends plan their...
This booklet offers opportunities for individual, family and all-meeting study of the foundations of the Quaker faith. It offers a way to welcome new attenders by drawing out the faith that is already within them while respecting where each is on their spiritual...
Había un gran interés en mi mente en no ocupar mi tiempo con relación a las cosas externas, de tal manera que nada me impidiera tener la fiel atención a la voz del Pastor Verdadero. —El diario de John Woolman, 1743, p.18 Este currículo es el resultado de una...
Una obra de teatro sobre la vida de Lucretia Mott (1793–1880) por Thomas Leverett. Lucretia es retratada tanto de niña como de adulta e incluye a otras figuras históricas: Elias Hicks, Thomas Coffin (su esposo), Lucy Stone (una activista por los derechos de las...
A series of six videos to help Quaker monthly meetings and worship groups welcome children and families. Recorded by Melinda Wenner Bradley in the Fall 2015. Rachel Guaraldi was the Videographer.
After many years of planning and three years of full-time work by many hands, the sequel to Rise Up Singing was published in 2015. The format of Rise Again is the same as in Rise Up Singing but the songs are all different. Rise Again expands possiblities to bring...
This curriculum helps children walk gently over God's Earth through interactive and fun activities. Young Friends experience the Earth as our home, see how we share our home with God's creatures, and learn how we can behave in caring ways for our world. Quaker...
Advices and queries on reaching out to families, connecting with each other and enriching all-ages worshipping communities. From Britain Yearly Meeting, "Please use this resource to explore what is happening in your meeting, and consider how you can develop as an...
This book exploring practical ways to be present could be used as part of a lesson on mindfulness and how we prepare for worship. The illustrations are lovely. Melinda Wenner Bradley has created the attached children's religious education lesson plan, "Looking Back,...
"A curriculum envisioned, created, and developed as a way to guide and educate young Friends in their Quaker faith, similar to Confirmation Classes or Bar/Bat Mitzvah studies found in other faiths. For any Quaker Meeting or Church, the program is designed for middle...
The purpose of this curriculum is to help young Friends sort out the many messages they get about race, racism, and white privilege, and to support them in becoming more effective forces for racial justice and racial healing. This work is neither easy nor trivial....
QuakerSpeak is a Quaker YouTube channel offering interviews with Friends of all different backgrounds, responding to the core questions of our faith. QuakerSpeak interviews are brief, personal and intimate, seeking to give viewers an experience that is entertaining,...
The Quaker Parenting Initiative seeks to nurture parents on their spiritual journey as they strive to integrate principles of human development with their Quaker faith while living with and guiding their children. This website offers a rich array of resources for...
Is there a distinctly Quaker way of child rearing? What in Quakerism speaks to how we guide and nurture our children and ourselves as parents? Paths to Quaker Parenting, is the outcome of a group of Quaker parents and grandparents who met for three years to share...
First Day Stories is a collection of 12 short stories about Quaker practices and beliefs for preschool children. First Day Stories is not a high adventure book offering deep insights. Instead, it is a gentle book with quiet simple practices that present Quaker life in...
This curriculum with one lesson for each of the 12 queries found in the 1972 Faith and Practice manual of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. Themes include: worship, ministry, care, education, outreach, social order, race relations, equality, environment, peace,...
FAITH & PLAY™ is a Montessori-inspired curriculum to help children find words and images for expressing the experiences of holy mystery and wonder. Play is children's practice, hence the name Faith & Play, deriving from Faith and Practice. Faith & Play...
Not everyone in Quaker Meeting speaks the same theological language, but Friends have a way to listen for the Spirit behind the words. This brief video explores the discipline of listening beyond the words, of interpretation, of discernment and appreciation for people...
Quaker Pastor Gregg Koskela came to Friends as a young adult, from various Evangelical Christian denominations. In this video he articulates the top 10 things that attracted him to Quakerism.
If you bring your children to a Quaker meeting, what will they experience? Part of the QuakerSpeak series from Friends Journal, this brief video excerpts interviews with Friends to explain how Quakers introduce children to silent worship, nurture children's spiritual...
The Quaker Religious Education Collaborative (QREC) 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.
We share leadership as part of our collaborative mission, making decisions using the Quaker ‘sense of the meeting’ process, sitting in expectant, worshipful waiting for the emergence of shared truth. Read more…
Our work takes place in ‘circles’ or small groups of Friends who labor on a common task, usually meeting by video conference due to the geographic diversity of the membership. Read more…
The QREC Resource Library is a place to share lessons and other educational information in support of our work as Quaker religious educators. This library is a forum for curricula, articles, videos and other educational materials on Quaker themes. You will also find principles, policies and procedures to strengthen operation of your child, youth and adult religious education programs.
Find renewal, companionship, and help for nitty gritty issues in Quaker religious education, all the while opening spaces for Spirit to work and listening together for God’s way forward.
QREC holds an annual conference and retreat. In addition we hold online Conversation Circles and post other religious education events as we learn about them.
Online conferences for Quaker religious educators to share about their work. Conversations are scheduled for two sessions per topic to encourage international participation. Join the conversation…
Religious education events of interest to Quakers from all parts of the world. Please let us know about upcoming online or in-person events happening in your area. See the list of upcoming events…
Home is the heart of faith formation for all families. This is especially true for Friends. As an experiential religion, Quakerism is best learned through living in loving community. Indeed, the vast majority of faith formation for our young Friends happens at home in the busy swirl of daily life.
QREC depends on all of us sharing our gifts and skills as religious educators. Here are some of the ways you can get involved…
