Signs of a Healthy Quaker Meeting

Meetings/congregations are healthy when…

1. They resolve conflict and tension with attempts at healing and reconciliation.


2. They have vision, direction, goals, follow-through and implementation.


3. They have a missions mindset rather than an institutional or maintenance mindset.


4. They welcome new ideas, creativity, and new leadership.


5. They tend to elevate “Quaker faith” over “Quaker culture.”


6. They provide adequate opportunities for people to grow spiritually and they provide a safe place for people to seek and ask questions.


7. They foster healthy emotional systems and people, creating space for emotionally unhealthy people.


8. They are solution-focused rather than problem-focused.


9. They focus on the essentials and forsake the non-essentials.


10. They have an ability to deal directly with one another in times of disagreement, change, and conflict.

Adapted directly from a post by Paul L. on Showers of Blessings, “Symptoms of a Crippled Meeting” that was inspired by, or perhaps reprinted from, a post on Quaker Renewal Forum. (The QRF post is no longer available.)