Community Practice Group
Join Nadine Hoover and Beth Collea in practicing the simple yet powerful essential practices described in Walking in the World as a Friend.
Third Mondays at 7:15 – 9:00pm Eastern Time:
- Sept 16, 2024
- Oct 21, 2024
- Nov 18, 2024
We invite participants to commit to practicing for three months, Sept–Nov, to experiment with listening inwardly to love and conscience working within us, testing discernment, recording, and yielding — and keeping a journal of an experiment with Spirit in our lives.
We encourage participants to find a companion that you can meet with every week or two over Sept – Nov 2024. It would be great if you both attend the sessions, but not necessary. During these sessions, we will pair Friends up randomly for companion time to broaden our experience.
7:00 Visiting or counsel — informal exchange
7:15 Welcome & Worship — listen inwardly for messages & journal messages
7:45 Companions — share messages or testimonies arising
8:15 Discernment — testify and receive feedback and record
8:45 Closing — comments
9:00 Close
Tests of Discernment:
- Sense of the Spirit.
- Persistence in the silence.
- Simplicity, seemingly trivial or impossible, not willful or desired.
- Integrity: honesty, authenticity, and consistency.
- Consistent with texts of other practicing communities / scripture.
- Writing in a journal or log.
- Reflection and feedback from companions.
- Recorded by monthly, quarterly, and yearly meeting communities.
- Published in writing, art, news, courts, or law.
- Experience of the fruits: love, joy, peace, strength, compassion, beauty, truth, equality and liberty.
Resources for these workshops:
Click here for the videos.
Click here to purchase the book, Walking in the World as a Friend.
Click here for a free PDF of Walking in the World as a Friend.
Click here for the article, “Lessons from Thriving Meetings.”
An Introduction
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.
Steering Circle
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…
Working Circles
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 Resource Library
Finders Guide, a sampling of the collection
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.
Children's Education
Adult Education
Family
African Quaker Library
Youth Education
Small Meetings
Young Adult Friends
Biblioteca QREC
Events
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.
Conversation Circles
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…
Other Events
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…
Love at the Heart
Spiritual Practices
Discernment
Active Caring
Quaker Family Culture
Finding the Light
Faith at Home
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.
Become a Member
Submit Resources
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Contact Us
Get Involved
QREC depends on all of us sharing our gifts and skills as religious educators. Here are some of the ways you can get involved…