“I think Quak­er busi­ness meet­ings have anoth­er pur­pose: they give us prac­tice in deci­sion mak­ing, and we build trust in one anoth­er. When some­thing extra­or­di­nary comes up that has to be dealt with imme­di­ate­ly, we kick into action using the mus­cle mem­o­ry from all of those Sun­day after­noons spent talk­ing about the finances. Because we’re a reli­gious body that has tak­en the time to know one anoth­er, we can antic­i­pate con­cerns and move sur­pris­ing­ly quickly.”

Pre­pared for This 

How do Quak­ers make swift, faith­ful deci­sions in times of cri­sis? Mar­tin Kel­ley explains the role of trust,…

Friends Journal 

Philadelphia-area Friend Tom Gates has start­ed a blog. Tom’s a very ground­ed and thought­ful Friend and I’m glad to know we’ll be see­ing more of his writings.

Quak­ers and the End of Scape­goat­ing | Tom Gates | Substack 

Part explo­ration of Rene Girard’s ground­break­ing ‘mimet­ic the­o­ry,’ part Bible com­men­tary, and part dia­logue with ear­ly and contemporary…

tgates​.sub​stack​.com

Obvi­ous­ly the biggest Quak­er news this week is a num­ber of Quak­er bod­ies (includ­ing my own Philadel­phia Year­ly Meet­ing) suing the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty over pol­i­cy changes that allow immi­gra­tion agents to go into house of wor­ship. The suit is being wide­ly report­ed in main­stream media.

Quak­er Schol­ars and Oth­ers File Friend of the Court Briefs in Sup­port of Plain­tiffs in Law­suit Against DHS [Updat­ed Feb. 2026] — Friends Journal 

“Sim­ply put, so long as DHS may legal­ly raid a Quak­er meet­ing­house, reli­gious exer­cise is affected.”

Friends Journal 

Craig Bar­nett on UK meet­ings that are attract­ing new­com­ers: “New­com­ers need to be made wel­come, includ­ing chil­dren. They need to find peo­ple who enjoy spend­ing time togeth­er, who are open about their spir­i­tu­al expe­ri­ence, and will­ing to share the rich­es of the Quak­er way with them. They need to expe­ri­ence Quak­er wor­ship that is expec­tant and gath­ered, where peo­ple take the risk of open­ness to the Spir­it that leads to deep and vul­ner­a­ble spo­ken ministry.”

Choos­ing to thrive 

A thriv­ing com­mu­ni­ty is not comfortable.

quak​er​re​new​al​.sub​stack​.com

The June/July _Friends Journal_ will look at Quak­er founder George Fox at 400. We haven’t got­ten a lot of arti­cles yet so we’ve extend­ed the dead­line and are beat­ing the bush­es (well, the socials) for prospec­tive writ­ers. Maybe I have only myself to blame, as my call for sub­mis­sions won­dered whether this was an appro­pri­ate topic:

> Still, there’s a very good ques­tion to be asked (and per­haps an arti­cle to be writ­ten) about whether we should be mak­ing this kind of a fuss for George Fox.

Despite that, I think there’s a good pur­pose to look­ing back like this and hope there’s some arti­cles in their pipeline to send to us by March 25th. 

Friends Jour­nal Sub­mis­sion Manager 

Friends Jour­nal wel­comes arti­cles, poet­ry, art, pho­tographs, and let­ters from our read­ers. We are also helped by your…

friend​sjour​nal​.sub​mit​table​.com

The newest Friends Jour­nal issue is out, look­ing at how we use mon­ey. It’s per­haps not the sex­i­est top­ic but it speaks to what we val­ue as a body of believ­ers. Are we focused on our inter­nal group or on the world out­side our walls? Some­times the dis­cus­sions around mon­ey are tedious and our deci­sions self-evident. I think it’s pos­si­ble for a meet­ing to spend too much time focused on its own self-management. But there are times when dis­cus­sions of resource use brings out sur­pris­ing inspiration. 

How Meet­ings Use Money 

Jan­u­ary 2025

Friends Journal