My take on the goals Liberal Quakers should be setting across organizations for the next five years.

1. Work Together

It is time to acknowledge that the future and life of Liberal Quakerism rests in our coordination. Organizations have become siloed, but this is easily remedied. Our yearly meetings, external organizations, and educational institutions need to begin setting broad strategy together. We can grow our funding base this way, and, more importantly, we can change the world this way. In five years’ time, we should have convened with as broad a representation as possible at least twice to begin this collective work.

2. Do Research and then Do More Research

We lack a keen sense of how we are truly perceived by the larger society within any demographic. We need to conduct market research that helps us understand how we are perceived and what campaigns we need to initiate to augment or dismantle wider perceptions. Britain Yearly Meeting is our case study in this work. Come to mention it, a marketing research project is the perfect locus upon which broader collaboration between heretofore siloed Quaker organizations could come together. We also need to embrace a more general practice of conducting regular demographic and evaluative research. How are we to know whether our local communities are thriving, or our projects successful, if we lack the proper metrics? The answer is, we can’t know! These metrics should be developed in tandem with many other organizations so that results are shareable and comparable. In five years’ time, we should have come together across organizations to conduct an unprecedented, broad-based marketing and demographic study. We should also have begun to develop metrics in the evaluation of programs that are shared and thus commonly understood so every yearly meeting, external organization, and educational institution can benefit from anyone’s research.

3. Build Networks and Collaboratives

The old model has served us well, and it will continue to serve us for a time. Monthly, Quarterly, and Yearly Meetings bring us institutional memory, financial stability, and seasoned methods for spiritual discernment. However, it is increasingly difficult to see beyond our fences and come together within specific areas of ministry or interest. Our Faith relies heavily on this fundamental tendency to convene over certain causes. For unclear reasons, we are less able to do this now than we have in the past. Therefore, it is time we augment the old model with new concepts that utilize recent technological developments. Networks and collaboratives that bring people together across local Quaker communities within certain areas of ministry and interest are the next step toward building the beloved community on this earth, now. Within five years’ time, several networks and collaboratives should be burgeoning at all levels of our spiritual community. Our leaders should be doing all they can to encourage and support their emergence.

4. Cultivate Relationships with Media

We should begin to come out from the shadows and start announcing our work in tangible ways. We should be letting our leaders be interviewed, and we should be writing op-eds. We should be announcing our big decisions and stances on foreign and domestic policy, for example, widely, and with an organized voice! In five years’ time, at least three General Secretaries or Clerks should be interviewed by a journalist somewhere. At least three Quaker thought leaders should be published in the New York Times, and at least three stances on our government’s policies should be mentioned in National news media outlets.

5. Start Talking a Lot More About God, Gifts, and Ministry

We need to start exploring how we actually practice worship, what we actually believe, and, yes, what we actually think about God. How are we to be a Faith community if we don’t at least discuss with each other the ultimate questions: Who am I? Where do I belong? What is the purpose of my life? Secondly, Quakerism is unique in part because we require members of our communities to orient their attention inwardly. Every Quaker is a minister; there is no laity in Quakerism. We move together toward discovering the power in each of us; the spiritual gifts we are led to use in ministry. We support each other and celebrate with each other in this process of discovery. We galvanize and inspire each other into lives that express our individual and collective ministries. It all starts with a much greater willingness to talk about God. In five years’ time, God-talk should be happening everywhere; taking Quaker twitter by storm! It doesn’t mean we have to agree with each other, it means we have to go deep with each other.