by Peter Blood-Patterson

Intent of workshop

Early Friends lived with a deep thirst to tell those around them about what they had discovered and experienced as part of the Publishers of Truth / Children of the Light.

Many Friends today are deeply reluctant today to talk openly with others (especially strangers!) about what we have experienced of the life and power that takes away the occasion of war. Many of us feel (for good reason) deeply uncomfortable with how evangelism is practiced by many Christians, particularly in this era of resurgent Christian nationalism.

Methodology

Participants use role-playing to explore their feelings about evangelism and explore together their emotional and cultural resistances to sharing our “light” as Friends with others — and to push against our boundaries, shyness, and discomfort about talking about how God works in us.

Open with introductions where everyone says a word or two that they associate with passionate sharing about Quakerism with non-Friends.

Have a period of open sharing of thoughts and feelings (positive and negative) about evangelism, i.e. sharing with others about one’s faith. 

It may be helpful to have someone roleplay speaking passionately about their beliefs to non-Friends to help “prime the pump” — or go directly to small groups. 

Break into groups of 4-5 people. Everyone in the group who is willing to do so takes about 4-5 minutes to roleplay speaking to non-Friends about their Quaker beliefs, practices, and ways of living in the world and with other Friends. Others in the small group can play the non-Friends who are listening to this message.

Participants are encouraged to try doing exercise in a way they can’t imagine doing! (e.g. how an early Friend such as Elizabeth Hooten, Mary Dyer, or George Fox might have preached in a marketplace). No one needs to roleplay who would rather not. Non-roleplayers can reflect back to others what they hear, notice, see! Take a few minutes to talk about each roleplay before another person speaks out about what they believe.

After 30 minutes or so return to the main group and have a period of worship sharing or reflective discussion around how this felt and ways Friends might become more involved in sharing what they value about their Quaker faith.

After Friends return to the large group, it may spur discussion to see if someone is willing to try a tough scenario like the first one in a really passionate way for the group as a whole.

Role-playing scenarios

Here are some possible scenarios (or make up your own):

1. Preaching in Hyde Park: There are soap boxes in Hyde Park in London where different people speak to small crowds on many different subjects. You are part of a group of Friends who decide to regularly spend the day testifying to strangers about Quakerism. You have a big sign saying “Who Are Quakers?” About 20 tourists, workers on lunch break, and people out for walks gather to listen to your talk. Another Friend “elders” for the Friend speaking by holding them in prayer.

2. Closing Statement at Your Trial: You’ve been arrested for sitting in at the gates of a coal plant (or military base, congressperson’s office, or whatever). Because you’ve been defending yourself at your trial, you’re given a chance in your closing statement to the jury to talk about why you felt God required / called you to do what you did as a Friend and how it sprang from your Quaker beliefs.

3. Sit-in at a Defense Plant: Your yearly meeting peace committee has organized a nonviolent sit-in at the gates of a defense plant that manufactures cluster bombs being used against civilian populations in an area where there is a civil conflict going on. Most of those taking part in the sit-in are Quakers. You are speaking through a megaphone to the employees waiting until the Quaker protesters are arrested to enter the gates of the plant. You are explaining to the workers at the plant the spiritual basis for why Friends are led to sit-in front of the plant where they work.

4. World Day for Peace: Your local interfaith association plans a program on the town common where speakers from the local mosque, synagogue, Buddhist sangha, congregational church, and Friends meeting take turns describing what their faith believes and practices and how it involves creating the peaceable kingdom on earth.

5. Quaker Day at New Bedford Meetinghouse: A large meetinghouse built in the 1700s is located in a Massachusetts seaport. Once a year the meeting holds an afternoon where a historical pageant is put on with Friends wearing traditional Quaker dress. As part of the activities you are invited to give a talk on Quakerism to the tourists and neighbors in your town that attend “Quaker Day”.

6. A Quaker Presence in Salem: Salem MA, where witch trials were held in the 1600s, is a tourist destination with people walking the streets in colonial dress invite people to tourist venues in town. Your meeting decides to hold a public program. Members of meeting dressed in Quaker plain dress distribute flyers to tourists on a busy summer day inviting them to a program about Quakers and how Friends were persecuted for trying to share their beliefs in Massachusetts Bay Colony. You give a talk about what Quakers believe today and are trying to communicate to the world, as Friends did in the 1600s.

7. Quaker Walk 2028: For several years Friends have been holding annual walks from an east coast meetinghouse to Washington DC lifting up a concern held by many Friends. These have grown larger each year and now include hundreds of walkers. Your meeting hosts the walkers as an overnight stop. The interfaith association invite the
“Quaker Walkers” to hold a public meeting in a local church where non-Friendsd can hear about what Friends believe and stand for and why they are led to hold these public walks.

8. Interfaith Orientation at Cedar Hills College: The small liberal arts college in your town holds activities to introduce new students to the faith congregations in town. You are offered time to describe why you are a Friend and what it means to be a Quaker.

9. “Elevator pitch”: You’re standing in line waiting for concert tickets. The person behind you sees a button you’re wearing saying “Quakers: Seeking to Let God Lead” (or something like that). They ask you who Quakers are, what we believe, what it means to “let God lead”. Other people standing in line are also curious and ask questions.

Queries

  • Is a universalist faith (i.e. belief that many different faith paths can lead people to the Beloved at the heart of all) consistent with a deep desire to share one’s own communal experience of God with others?
       (or put another way…)
    Is humility about one’s own experience of God consistent with passionate conviction of Truth as one understands / experiences it?
  • How might Friends today help each other break out from under the bushel where we are (in my view) hiding our light?
  • Is there a way that Quaker evangelism might be practiced invitationally, compassionately, and with deep respect towards others’ experience of God / spirituality?

This workshop was offered during a conference on Publishers of the Truth, cosponsored by Pendle Hill’s Quaker Institute and Earlham School of Religion’s Quaker Leadership Center. This was held at Pendle Hill in May 2025. 

About 20 people took part in the workshop. After the return from breakout groups, one Friend agreed to speak really passionately about his beliefs for the group as a whole using scenario #1.