Swarthmore Friends Meeting

Swarthmore, Pennsylvania

Swarthmore Friends (Quakers) welcome you to campus!

What can you expect in a Quaker Meeting for Worship?

Quaker Meetings are worship based in silence. This silence is different from that experienced in traditional, solitary meditation. The listening and waiting in a Meeting for Worship is a shared experience in which worshippers seek to meet God.

Friends Meeting for Worship may be entirely without words, but usually there will be some brief spoken contributions. This 'ministry' is intended to express aloud what is already present in the silence. Anyone may feel the call to speak, man, woman or child, Friend or first time visitor.

The seating for a Meeting for Worship is usually arranged in a circle or a square to help people to be aware of one another, to be conscious of the fact that they are worshipping together.

There is a very wide variety of sources of spoken ministry and the acceptance of them is an important part of Quaker worship. Since the Religious Society of Friends is part of the Christian tradition, people may speak of the life and teachings of Jesus, use words from other sources, or refer to events in daily life. Friends try to look for the underlying truth, regardless of the words in which it is expressed.

The Meeting for Worship generally lasts an hour or slightly longer. The Meeting is closed by a handshake. We hold fellowship or pot luck and sometimes adult education sessions afterwards.