Spiritual Deepening Opportunities

Friends General Conference (FGC)

provides services and resources for individual Friends and their families, Quaker meetings and people interested in the Quaker faith and practice. The work of FGC can be summarized into three areas of endeavor:

• Conferences and consultations, including the FGC Gathering, an annual conference of North American unprogrammed Quakers that provides opportunities for fellowship, spiritual deepening, and sharing best practices for building community and decision-making;
• Religious Education materials and opportunities, including the Young Friends and Young Adult and Youth (YAY) Gatherings, and workshops and retreats to meet the needs of youth, young adults, families with children, and adults who work with young people in Quaker settings;
• Programs and initiatives such as the Ministry on Racism which provides opportunities for Friends of Color to gather and build community together and the Spiritual Deepening Program which provides eRetreats and the Spiritual Deepening Library, an online collection of exercises to explore spiritual issues.

FGC also publishes and distributes books, ebooks, and pamphlets through QuakerBooks of FGC. QuakerBooks publishes a list of recommended basic texts and a list of the 20 most popular books about Quakerism.

Pendle Hill

is a Quaker, Philadelphia-area retreat and conference center welcoming all for spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. It offers:

• Education programs, including residencies, 2 1/2 month terms, week-end retreats and conferences, and lectures;
• Hospitality for personal retreats, sabbaticals, and overnights;
• Facilities and services for group retreats and conferences;
• A podcast, pamphlets and books.

The [Quaker] School of the Spirit

serves all those who wish to be more faithful listeners and responders to the work of the Inward Teacher. The ministry is grounded in prayer and offers programs to deepen the Quaker contemplative tradition of the living silence.

The School of the Spirit offers contemplative weekend retreats and year-long programs seeking the root which gives life and power to our worship and our work in the world.

SotS also provides the Faithful Meetings program at the meetinghouses of participating communities. A School of the Spirit facilitator will travel to the meeting for the opening retreat and will work from-a-distance with individuals in the community to co-facilitate subsequent gatherings using distance learning tools. The purpose of Faithful Meetings is not to teach a specific orientation but to provide understanding of the spiritual depth and range of Quaker practices and theological expressions so that each community can use these practices in ways that are authentic to them.