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Friends General Conference

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The Friends General Conference (FGC) is a North American Quaker organization primarily serving the Quaker yearly and monthly meetings in the United States and Canada that choose to be members. The FGC was founded in 1900.[1]

There are two other similar organizations within Quakerism, Friends United Meeting and Evangelical Friends Church International; each of these three organizations represent different branches within Quakerism, with the FUM occupying a more-or-less centrist theological viewpoint and the EFCI representing an admixture of Quakerism and conservative evangelicalism. FGC-affiliated meetings are in the "unprogrammed" Quaker tradition, which means that such meetings take place without human pastoral leadership, or a prepared order of worship. Friends (Quakers) in FGC tend to be decidedly more socially and theologically liberal than Friends from other parts of Quakerism (and than the general U.S. population). In many respects, they are analogous to mainline Protestants who hold strongly progressive viewpoints on matters such as biblical authority, sexual mores, and attitudes toward public policy, with pacifism perhaps being the FGC's chief distinctive. In 2002, there were 32,000 members in 832 congregations in the United States.[2]

The FGC hosts an annual conference in early July for members of member organizations (although individual membership is not required to attend). It also operates a bookstore and a publishing house, and provides numerous resources for meetings and individual Friends.

The main offices for the FGC are in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Mission statement

The Friends General Conference is a Quaker organization in the unprogrammed tradition of the Religious Society of Friends which primarily serves affiliated yearly and monthly meetings. The statement of purpose reads:

Friends General Conference, with Divine guidance, nurtures the spiritual vitality of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) by providing programs and services for Friends, meetings, and seekers.

Major Goals

  • Nurture meetings and worship groups.
  • Provide resources and opportunities for meetings, Friends, and seekers to experience the Light, the living presence of God.
  • Help meetings guide Friends to discern the leadings of the Inward Teacher and to grow into ministry.
  • Transform our awareness so that our corporate and individual attitudes and actions fully value and encompass the blessed diversity of our human family.
  • Work to grow and sustain a vital, diverse, and loving community of Friends based on a shared search for unity in the Spirit.
  • Articulate, communicate, and exemplify Friends' practices, core experiences, and the call to live and witness to our faith.
  • Promote dialogue with others, sharing with them our corporate experience of Divine Truth and listening to and learning from their experience of the same.

[3]

Structure

The FGC is overseen by a committee of 170 Friends, 112 of whom are appointed by affiliated yearly and monthly meetings. The work of the FGC is carried out by the staff and volunteer members of its program committees.[3]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Locations of FGC Conferences and Gatherings", FGC website.
  2. ^ "2008 Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches". The National Council of Churches. Retrieved 2009-12-03.
  3. ^ a b FGC about page
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