Quakerism 101: A Kit for Meetings

Quakerism 101

Quakerism 101 is a series of conversations about Quaker faith and practice for newcomers, seekers, and seasoned Friends alike. This page is a kit to help your monthly meeting or worship group run its own sessions, drawing on LEYM’s 2023–24 online series and on free materials from Friends elsewhere.

Why a Kit?

LEYM’s 2025–26 annual query asked meetings how they help Friends build a foundation in Quaker thought, experience, discernment, and history. Ministry & Nurture’s review of the responses, printed in the Spring 2026 Bulletin (pages 9–10), found that several meetings had once held Quakerism 101 classes that have since lapsed, and that some are considering starting them again. Meetings asked whether LEYM could offer an online class or a curriculum they could use, and one meeting wished for tested materials so that it didn’t have to reinvent them.

This kit is a first step. It gathers a proven set of topics and free materials, so that even a small meeting can offer a session with modest preparation.

Full Curricula

If your meeting wants a complete course, these are well developed and free:

  • Quaker Affirmation from Indianapolis First Friends Meeting: a ten-month curriculum for adults (and a youth version) with participant and teacher manuals and presentation materials. It covers Quaker history, the testimonies, discernment, theology, Quaker changemakers, and participants’ own beliefs. Individual sections work well as stand-alone sessions.
  • Religious Education for Adults (“Quakerism 101”) from Philadelphia Yearly Meeting: a collection of free introductory materials, including a six-session study of the “revolutionary roots” of Quakerism.
  • Quakerism 101: A Very Basic Introduction with Suggested Readings by Wess Daniels: a short guided reading list on Quaker history, belief, and practice, shared with the 2023–24 series.

Seven Sessions to Start With

These are the topics of LEYM’s 2023–24 series, each offered by a different meeting. For each one we’ve suggested materials to build on.

1. What Is Quakerism?

2. Vocal Ministry in Meeting for Worship

3. A Quaker Life

Broadmead Friends opened 2024 with a visit from Lucretia Mott, portrayed by Shelley Kotz, who told her life story. Your meeting might invite someone to portray, or simply introduce, a Friend from history or from your own meeting’s past.

  • The “changemakers” material in the Quaker Affirmation curriculum

4. Guides to Faith and Practice

Ann Arbor Friends introduced the Faith and Practice books that yearly meetings write to guide their members. Their handout shows how five of them speak to one concern, care for the earth.

5. What Friends Believe

  • Nine Core Quaker Beliefs, Arthur Larrabee’s list, from Kalamazoo’s session (PDF)
  • The Quaker testimonies (SPICES): simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality, stewardship (PDF)
  • Quaker SPICY Talk: a conversation game for exploring the testimonies together. Spin, draw a reflection card, and share, with no winners or losers and the right to pass on any question. Play the free mobile version on a phone, with no app download, or download the materials to make your own tabletop set.

6. Quaker Meeting for Business

7. Quaker Service Organizations

More Topic Ideas

Suggestions offered to meetings when the series began:

  • How to be a “good Quaker”
  • Orthodoxy versus orthopraxy
  • Committees: how do Quakers get things done?
  • Ways to explain Quakerism to others
  • Quakers around the world
  • Quakerism and sustainability
  • Quakerism and conflict resolution
  • Intergenerational worship: what it looks like and how to do it
  • Bringing other religious traditions, or nontheism, into Quaker practice
  • A Quaker ancestor who inspires you

LEYM’s recorded sessions on Gifts and Leadings and Spiritual Deepening and Vital Community can also serve as ready-made sessions.

Tips for Hosting

  • Keep it open. Invite everyone: newcomers, seekers, and seasoned Friends, of any age. Mixed groups learn from each other.
  • Leave room for reflection. The 2023–24 sessions ran 90 minutes and always included time for silence, small groups, or questions, whatever the presentation style.
  • Share the work. Different Friends or committees can each take a session. A small meeting might partner with a larger one, or with another meeting online.
  • Going online? LEYM’s Digital Communications Facilitator can help with Zoom. Contact leymworker@gmail.com.

About the 2023–24 LEYM Series

From October 2023 to May 2024, LEYM’s Advancement & Outreach Committee supported a monthly Quakerism 101 series on Zoom, open to all. North Columbus Friends Meeting led the first two sessions, following a format it had used since 2021; after that, a different meeting hosted each month: Broadmead, Ann Arbor, Kalamazoo, Pittsburgh, and Red Cedar. The sessions were not recorded. The committee felt they needed to be experienced together, and the small-group breakout rooms couldn’t be captured. What survives are the topics and handouts gathered above.

Share Your Sessions

If your meeting runs a Quakerism 101 session, please send your outline, handouts, or slides to the Digital Communications Facilitator at leymworker@gmail.com so other meetings can use them. This kit will grow as meetings contribute. See also Resources for Religious Education.

Updated September 2026.

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