Message from the Pastoral Care and Eldership Team (PaCET) for Sunday Meeting 27th February 2026

Dear Friends,

Here is a challenge we often face when trying to explain the essence of Quakerism. How to do it in 10 lines without hesitation, deviation or repetition, or worst still producing a creed? I found a possible answer in the ‘Friend’ a few months ago with a quotation from Ben Pink Dandelion, a learned Friend who worshipped with us many moons ago. It was headed as being Ben’s ‘four key attributes of British Quakerism in the 20th century’ (but with source unstated). It works for me, and when I tried it out at a recent explorers’ group session it appeared to resonate with Friends from the 21st century too. What do you think?

1. Everyone can encounter the sacred/God/Light in a direct and personal way. Without mediation by priest or creed. This is the foundational experience of Quakerism.
2. Unprogrammed, gathered worship together nurtures this encounter with the divine. So Quakerism is both deeply personal and placed within the practice of a community of gathered worship.
3. Our Quaker practices of communal discernment give us ways to take forward what we have learnt from the encounter with the sacred and to renew this understanding in the light cast by our own particular times.
4. Out of all these we will necessarily be drawn to serve and witness in the wider world with more wisdom and courage than we would otherwise have had.

John Ashcroft

Quakers value diversity. We share this Friend’s message in the hope it will speak to others.

Pastoral Care and Eldership Team: Patricia Cockrell, David Hitchin, Sharon Krummel, Tim Pitt-Payne, Theresa Samms, Emily Slater.