Queries are questions Friends ask ourselves, individually and together, to examine how we are living our faith. Lake Erie Yearly Meeting uses them in two ways: an annual query that meetings consider together each year, and the LEYM Book of Advices & Queries, a lasting collection for personal and meeting use.

The Annual Query

Since 1985, LEYM’s Ministry & Nurture Committee has prepared a query each year, sometimes with suggested readings, for monthly meetings and worship groups to consider together. The query is sent to meeting clerks and worship group conveners each fall and posted on this page.

How to respond

• Consider the query together, for example in worship sharing or a called meeting.
• Write a short response describing the insights that arose. Responses may reflect the meeting as a whole or the voices of individual Friends.
• Send it to the Ministry & Nurture co-clerks by February 1.

The committee reads every response and publishes a summary in the Annual Records. It’s a good way to hear what other meetings are experiencing. Your meeting’s State of the Meeting Report, due May 15, may also draw on the query.

Most recent query: 2025–2026

How does your Meeting assure that members and attenders receive a solid and well-rounded foundation in the religious thought, experience, the practice of discernment, and the history of Friends? Does your Meeting have an ongoing religious education program? How can the Yearly Meeting assist in this?

2025–26 Query (PDF). The 2026–27 query will be posted here when it is released this fall.

Previous Annual Queries, from 2001 to 2024.

LEYM Book of Advices & Queries

Drawn up by an ad hoc committee and approved by the Yearly Meeting in session in July 2012, the LEYM Book of Advices & Queries contains 66 advices and queries in 16 sections, on topics such as spiritual life, meeting for worship, outreach, and Friends’ testimonies. It also describes the history and uses of advices and queries and how this set was created, and it expects the collection to keep evolving as new concerns and insights arise.

• LEYM Book of Advices & Queries (PDF)
• Interactive LEYM Queries Browser (good on mobile devices)

Related

• Ministry & Nurture: Support for Meetings
• Suggested Guidelines for the State of the Meeting Report
• Advices & Queries from Britain Yearly Meeting’s Quaker Faith & Practice

Updated September 2026.