The Religious Society of Friends is a religion based on the individual and corporate spiritual search for an inward, immediate experience of the divine. Friends have a deep faith in divine guidance and in obedience to the “leadings” and “concerns” that spring from it and spiritual practices that enhance individual and corporate “discernment” of God’s will.
Friends do not seek uniformity in religious beliefs, but we do seek unity in discerning leadings of the Spirit. Friends do not have a creed or uniform set of beliefs, but we do have a set of unique corporate spiritual practices for discerning Divine guidance—silent meetings for worship, Spirit-led vocal ministry, meetings for business, meetings for learning, worship sharing, clearness committees, and the personal and corporate responding to queries.

Baltimore Yearly Meeting- our association of Friends Meetings in Virginia, Maryland, and south-central Pennsylvania

Friends General Conference- our national association of Friends Meetings in the United States

Friends Committee on National Legislation- our lobbyIng arm in Washington

Pendle Hill - since its founding in 1930, Pendle Hill thrives as an "educational experiment, grounded in the spiritual and social principles of Friends - a community centered in the daily meeting for worship and sharing a common life of study, work, recreation, and mutual care and concern for one another.

AFSC-The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) carries out service, development, social justice, and peace programs throughout the world. Founded by Quakers in 1917 to provide conscientious objectors with an opportunity to aid civilian war victims, AFSC’s work attracts the support and partnership of people of many races, religions, and cultures.

We Friends believe the Light of God is in every person of every faith, and even present in those people who profess no faith. God’s presence in us has nothing to do with anything we’ve done. It isn’t something we’ve earned. God’s presence in us isn’t something we’ve achieved because we’ve followed a certain ritual or believed a particular doctrine.
Now we might think that some people, because of their behavior, don’t have God’s Presence in them. I would be the first to say that some people seem more aware of God’s Presence in them, that they tend the Light of God in them more tenderly and conscientiously than someone else might. But even those people who ignore God’s Presence in them are just as loved, just as cherished, just as prized as the most devout saint. Because the Light of God within us is never extinguished, and there is always hope that even the most immoral people can grow in their awareness of God’s Presence and live in the reality of God’s Presence more fully.

Philip Gulley, Grace Talk Messages, www.philipgulley.org