The Jacksonville Quaker Worship Group is offering a new class from November through April titled Building the Spiritual Life of the Meeting. Our readings and discussions will explore the history and diversity of Quaker spiritual thought, experience, and practice. We’ll consider how insights from Quaker predecessors and contemporaries can help deepen our meeting’s spiritual life and service to our communities.

We will meet on the third Monday of each month—except in January, when we’ll meet on the second Monday—from 12:00 to 1:30 p.m. at Community Presbyterian Church in Atlantic Beach. A Zoom option will also be available. Meetings will be recorded, and recordings will be shared by email and posted on our website.

Attached you’ll find our class schedule, which lists meeting dates, topics, and readings for each month. I’m also attaching the readings for our first class on Monday, November 17:

I can provide most of our readings as PDF copies or online links via email, or you can pick up printed copies in our meeting room at Community Presbyterian.

Some readings (from January through April) will be Pendle Hill pamphlets, which can be purchased directly from Pendle Hill or on Amazon. Pendle Hill pamphlets have offered rich, succinct explorations of Quaker spirituality and service for more than 90 years. If you’re unable to purchase them, please let me know—I’ll make sure you receive a copy.

Attendees should not feel obligated to complete all the readings on the schedule. Multiple readings are listed so participants can gain different perspectives or explore topics of particular interest. You are welcome to read as much or as little as you like and can fully participate even without having done the readings.

If you’d like to join our study group, please reply to let me know. You’re also welcome to be added to our email list even if you can’t attend, so you can receive updates and discussion summaries. I’ll send a follow-up email to participants about a week before our first class with an overview of the readings and reflection questions. I’ll only send future emails to those who express interest in the study group and who wish to be on the study group’s email list.

Please reach out if you have any questions in the meantime.

Scott

Hello Friends,

In May, we will resume our Quaker study group by reading a book by Lloyd Lee Wilson, Essays on the Quaker Vision of Gospel Order. This study group will run from May to September at take place in our room at Community Presbyterian Church in Atlantic Beach. Please check the calendar for dates and times.

Friends can purchase the book by clicking here. The link takes you to Barclay Press, which has the best and cheapest version of the book. The book, though, is published by Quaker Press of Friends General Conference. Amazon only has expensive and older versions of the book, so avoid Amazon. I’ll provide three copies of the book for attendees who aren’t able to purchase it for any reason. If you aren’t able to get the book in time for the May class, I can make copies of the essays we’ll read and email them out. If you think you might be interested in participating in this study, reply to this email to let me know.

The author of this book, Lloyd Lee Wilson, is a former clerk of North Carolina Yearly Meeting (Conservative) and former General Secretary of Friends General Conference. For those who aren’t familiar, “Conservative” here doesn’t refer to politics but to Quaker meetings that most “conserve” original Quaker practices and the Society of Friends’s Christian roots. Though we are a Liberal Quaker worship group and part of a Liberal yearly meeting, I think Wilson’s writings possess a unique spiritual and intellectual depth that make them valuable to Friends of any persuasion.

Wilson’s book is a collection of twelve essays that fall under three broad headings: “The Quaker Message,” “Spiritual Gifts and the Faith Community,” and “Witness and Testimonies.” A theme linking these essays is the idea of “gospel order,” a phrase often used by George Fox. According to Wilson, “gospel order is the order established by God that exists in every part of creation, transcending the chaos that seems so often prevalent. It is the right relationship of every part of creation, however small, to every other part and to the Creator. . . . An attention to gospel order enables the meeting faith community to perceive and accept the spiritual gifts which God offers, as well as to develop and exercise those gifts as God desires. Finally, gospel order is both a distinctive aspect of Quaker witness and testimony and the means by which Friends come to understand how they are to witness to the world.”

Please let me know if you might be interested in joining our study group or if you have any questions.

Scott