Advice to Red Cedar Friends Seeking Financial Assistance to Attend Quaker Conferences
In Our Region
Green Pastures Quarterly Meeting (GPQM) provides community and support for the eight unprogrammed Friends Meetings and five worship groups in lower Michigan. GPQM meets on the third Sunday in May and September to conduct business; it meets on the first Sunday in August for outdoor worship and fellowship at Quaker Park in Battle Creek. During the winter, one of the monthly meetings hosts a workshop or retreat to which all are invited.
Michigan Friends Center, surrounded by 92 lakefront acres belonging to Friends Lake Cooperative Community in Chelsea, offers a facility to groups seeking a scenic, tranquil meeting place. It is an ideal change-of-pace setting for conferences, workshops, retreats, trainings, educational programs and special events. The Center is available year-round for reservations and is efficiently designed to accommodate a variety of group activities.
Lake Erie Yearly Meeting (LEYM) meets annually during the summer for business and worship. Unprogrammed Friends Meetings in Ohio, Michigan, and parts of Pennsylvania and West Virginia belong to the LEYM Yearly Meeting.
Other Monthly Meetings in Michigan
On the National Level
Friends General Conference (FGC) is a national organization that serves unprogrammed Friends in North America. It does not meet for business as Monthly, Quarterly, and Yearly Meetings do, but is governed by a Central Committee that includes members from meetings across the country.
According to its Minute of Purpose, its mission is to educate Friends and help them experience “God’s living presence.” FGC Gathering is a week-long convention, over Fourth of July week each year, that is an important opportunity for deepening Friends’ knowledge and spiritual experience.
The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is a Quaker organization that includes people of various faiths who are committed to social justice, peace, and humanitarian service. AFSC work is based on the principles of the Religious Society of Friends, the belief in the worth of every person, and faith in the power of love to overcome violence and injustice.
The Friends Committee on National Legislation lobbies Congress and the administration to advance peace, justice, opportunity, and environmental stewardship. Founded in 1943 by members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), FCNL fields an expert team of lobbyists on Capitol Hill and works with a grassroots network of tens of thousands of people across the country to advance policies and priorities established by our governing General Committee. FCNL is a nonpartisan organization that seeks to live our values of integrity, simplicity, and peace as we build relationships across political divides to move policies forward. Red Cedar Friends has an active FCNL Advocacy Team.
Pendle Hill is a Quaker center welcoming all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. Pendle Hill was established in 1930 in Pennsylvania as a Quaker study center designed to prepare its adult students for service both in the Religious Society of Friends and in the world. Its mission was both educational and religious: Pendle Hill was to be a school, rooted in Quaker community life, where students and staff would live according to Quaker principles and practices and where learning would be experiential as well as intellectual.
The School of the Spirit Ministry serves all those who wish to be more faithful listeners and responders to the work of the Inward Teacher. The ministry is grounded in prayer and offers programs rooted in the Quaker contemplative tradition of the living silence. Programs include contemplative retreats and “Participating in God’s Power.”
Red Cedar Friends Meeting 