Friends’ testimonies on simplicity, peace, integrity, equality, and stewardship, come together in our testimony on community, which calls us to sustain caring relationships for all. In today’s interconnected world, human survival depends more than ever on discerning and actualizing the truth of our corporate experience, on mutual regard and support, on nurturing our relationships with one another and society, and with the environment as a whole.

An inspired leading is a gift of grace and demands obedience. By living in a close and trusted community we are given the support and the means to test that leading in conversation, in worship, or in a clearness committee. Trust in the love of a listening community, commitment to the process of sharing our convictions, enables and enlivens us to move forward with the leading we have been given.

Within Friends’ spiritual community, the collective search for truth, undertaken in the Meeting for Worship, is the foundation for the beloved community to which Friends aspire. Living our faith is not a private matter. It calls us outward to the needs of the community at large. To be true to the Spirit, we must recognize and nourish the spiritual worth of all people, particularly those who have been devalued or excluded. Following the Spirit’s leadings together, we hope to overcome the causes of racism, sexism, and homophobia, and the neglect of children, the poor, and the socially marginalized.