so you found Quakers on the internet…

You’ve seen a Tweet, TikTok, or other social media post about Quakers, and they sound great. Or you’ve read a Wikipedia article or a blog post or you’re just curious… you want to know more about Quakers. Where can you go?

In this blog post, I’ll run through three basic options for finding out more, depending what you want to know. In short, these are: the practical method, where you meet Quakers and try out Quaker worship; the more information method, where you learn more about Quakers in theory; and the historical approach, where you explore Quakers as they have been in the past. Of course, you don’t have to pick just one.

Practical. If you want to try out Quaker worship, what can you do? You can start on your own, right now, by looking for ways to be calm and quiet, and listen for an inner voice that helps you to understand things better and make good choices. Most Quakers find that our method works better in company, and you have options for that as well. Since you’ve found Quakers on the internet, you might want to try a Quaker meeting for worship online. There are some which are public, and you can just turn up: Woodbrooke and Ben Lomond Quaker Centre, for example. Many Quaker communities which meet in person also have an online element – to get the details for these, you usually need to contact the specific community you want to join. A selection are listed by the Friends World Committee for Consultation. And you can find an in person meeting by searching online: Friends Around the World is a good starting place, or there may be a more local database such as Britain Yearly Meeting’s Find a Meeting.

Theoretical. If you want to know more about Quakers in theory, you have lots of choices depending how you’d like to get your information. There are probably the widest range of choices for people who like to read: free leaflets to download, websites to explore, and books such as my Quakers Do What! Why?. If you’d like to see videos, QuakerSpeak is the big one, and check out srekauq on YouTube. For shorter bites, you could explore the TikTok channels run by Makenzie Morgan, Rory Kennison, and me. There are also some Quaker podcasts if you prefer to listen: you could start with A Quaker Take and Quaker Faith & Podcast. Lots more resources for this approach are linked from Wess Daniels’ Quakerism 101 page.

Historical. Perhaps you’ve interested in Quakers because you have Quaker family or ancestors, or because they’ve come up in relation to another area of history you’re interested in – the founding of America and especially Pennsylvania; the Civil War and Commonwealth in 17th Century England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland; or lots of other times and places. Finding out about Quakers today, through either of the methods above, might not answer your questions. In fact, because Quakers have changed a lot in some ways, it might just leave you more confused – if you want to know about Quakerplain dress, and you visit a Quaker meeting today, you’re unlikely to come away much clearer, because very few Quakers wear plain dress now. For a very quick starting point (5 minutes), this video by Young Friends in Richmond is good. You could also try the free three-week course from FutureLearn, Radical Spirituality or Pink Dandelion’s book An Introduction to Quakerism. If you want to dive deeper, you could start with this research guide from the TriCollege libraries, or contact the Library of the Society of Friends or the Friends Historical Library. To search for an individual, the family history website Ancestry has lots of Quaker records digitised and the Quaker Family History Society may be able to help.

What do you want to learn about Quakers? What resources have helped you? Please comment below with questions and suggestions.