My phone rang not long ago. It was a Quaker calling from out-of-state, whom I had met several years ago at a conference. He called because their Quaker meeting was in decline, and he wanted to know if I had any suggestions that might revive their meeting.
He said, “Our big problem is that people don’t know we’re here.”
I said, “Yes, that’s a problem. If people don’t know you’re there, they likely won’t visit.”
He’d suggested to his meeting that they run an advertisement in the local newspaper, but some folks in the meeting were uncomfortable with that, believing if God wanted people to come to their meeting, God would tell them directly, not through a newspaper.
I felt a headache coming on.
I said, “Do you have a website or maybe even a Facebook page? Facebook is free.”
“They didn’t like that idea, either,” he said.
“Have you encouraged them to invite their friends?” I asked. “80% of the people who attend Quaker meetings do so because they were invited by a friend.”
“I would,” he said, “but Quakers don’t evangelize.”
I could feel the headache move down my forehead and lodge between my eyeballs, where it pulsed away.
We’ve been talking about the things early Quakers got just right, and one of them was their comfort with innovation. They were not just comfortable with new forms of thinking and living, but when it became clear their old world no longer worked, they welcomed innovation. When given the choice between innovation and tradition, early Friends almost always innovated, almost always took the new path, the fresh direction. They practiced the Christian faith differently, they exercised power differently, they viewed women and people of color differently, they read and interpreted the Bible differently, and when given the opportunity, they governed differently. They were always willing to imagine living a new way, a better way, a fresh way. A modern misconception of Quakers is that we are mired in the past, that we dress like people used to dress and talk like people used to talk, but that is a caricature of us, and like all caricatures is a false and exaggerated impression.
Do you know one of the indicators of good mental health? Perhaps one of the strongest indicators of sound mental health? Our willingness and ability to embrace change. Without that ability, we perish. I’ve quoted this more than once, but the longer I live, the more I appreciate its truth, that it is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most adaptable to change. Case in point. Last Sunday’s New York Times had an article about the two remaining Shakers, who live at Sabbathday Lake in Maine. It was titled, “There Are Only Two Shakers Left. They’ve Still Got Utopia In Their Sights.”
Well, that’s nice. It’s good to have a goal. But for crying out loud, evolve. Change. Progress. Seriously, if you had to dress like a Quaker from the 1800s, would you still be a Quaker? I wouldn’t be. If you couldn’t enjoy music, would you still be a Quaker? I wouldn’t be. If you had to visit other churches and stand during worship to argue with them about theology, would you still be a Quaker? I wouldn’t be. Well, maybe I would be…
Early Quakers believed their vitality was a sign of God’s favor, that God was blessing them for their faithfulness. But every religion says that when times are good. God is rewarding our loyalty and devotion. But what if their vitality stemmed from their determination to embrace innovation, to employ the most modern forms of communication to spread their message? An early name for Quakers was The Publishers of Truth, denoting their adoption of mass marketing or pamphleteering. They published catchy titles such as “False Prophets and False Teachers Described” and “Poems Intended to Promote Piety and Virtue in the Minds of Young People” and the much-loved pamphlet, “Serious Considerations on Several Important Subjects: viz-a-viz, On War and Its Inconsistency With the Gospel; Observations on Slavery; and Remarks on the Nature and Bad Effects of Spirituous Liquors.”
Pamphleteering was the 17 th-century version of Facebook, Instagram, and X rolled together. X, you’ll remember, was formerly known as Twitter, and is owned by Elon Musk, who was formerly known as rational.
Significant social movements take advantage of cultural developments. Christianity didn’t become a world religion because Jesus discovered a new message. Almost everything Jesus taught was rooted in a Canaanite polytheistic religion that predated Jesus by 3,000 years. Christianity took root because the Roman Empire had spread across the known world, leaving in its wake a network of roads and a system of law that made possible the wide dissemination of beliefs and ideas. The Apostle Paul was able to travel to the capital of that empire, Rome, where his ideas were embraced, shared, and dispersed. Had Christianity been birthed in South Africa or the American West or Greenland, it would have been nothing more than a regional folk religion. That it lived and thrived is because the first Christians took full advantage of the innovations and advances of their time.
This begs the question: Do we Friends today embrace cultural innovations that help us share our much-needed message with the wider world? That’s a collective question we can ask ourselves. But it is not just a collective question, it is a personal, individual question. Do I embrace modern developments in order to grow, develop, and evolve, or am I mired in senseless traditions that have lost their power and vitality?
Danville had its annual Fair on the Square last week. I visited a booth and purchased a few posters for our meetinghouse. Perhaps you saw them when you came in this morning.
The poster I didn’t hang, because I wanted you to see it together, is this one, written by Jon Acuff. Be Brave Enough To Suck At Something New. Early Friends thrived because they were brave enough to suck at something new. Our meeting will thrive when we are brave enough to suck at something new. You will thrive when you are brave enough to suck at something new.
Let’s take a lesson from early Friends and be brave enough to suck at something new.