About Quakers
Links to Quaker Organizations and Resources
Organizations with which SMFM is affiliated
Santa Monica Friends Meeting is a Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends.
We are members of SCQM. Southern California Quarterly Meeting is comprised of thirteen unprogrammed meetings and worship groups of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Southern California and Nevada.
We are also members of PYM. Pacific Yearly Meeting consists of two quarterly meetings (including SCQM) and a number of unaffiliated monthly meetings and worship groups. Meetings and worship groups are located in Northern and Southern California, Nevada, Hawaii, Mexico and Guatamala.
We are affiliated with Friends General Conference (FGC), an association of fifteen yearly meetings or regional groups and fourteen directly affiliated monthly meetings, which provides services and resources for individual Quakers, Quaker meetings and people interested in the Quaker faith and practice.
Santa Monica Friends Meeting Facebook page
The Quaker Activist: Reducing the Gap Between Rich and Poor. A blog maintained by the Subcommittee of Peace and Social Action Formed to Study Inequality, a subcommittee of the Peace and Social Action Committee of Santa Monica Friends Meeting.
Other Quaker Organizations
Ben Lomond Quaker Center is a retreat & conference center in Ben Lomond,CA.
Pendle Hill is a Quaker study, retreat, and conference center near Philadelphia, PA.
Woolman at Sierra Friends Center is a nonprofit educational community in the Sierra Nevada Foothills offering a high school semester program, summer camp programs for youth and families, and community activities.
Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Concerns is a North American Quaker faith community that affirms that of God in all people.
Los Angeles Young Quakers is an affinity group for Friends in their 20s and 30s. Our goal is to provide a space for young adult Quakers throughout Los Angeles, Pasadena, and Santa Monica to meet up, connect, hang out, and worship with each other. We host monthly events such as worship, bowling, potlucks, nature hikes, stargazing, and film screenings. Young Quakers are invited to connect with us via our Facebook page or contact layoungquakers@gmail.com for more information and notices about upcoming events.
Quaker Institute for the Future (QIF) envisions a global future in which humanity is in right relationship with the commonwealth of life.
Friends Council on Education provides leadership in drawing Friends schools together in unity of spirit and cooperative endeavors. The Council's work nurtures the Quaker life of schools, strengthens the network of support across schools, promotes Friends education through consultations, programs, and publications, and assists in the establishment of new Friends schools.
Friends World Committee for Consultation encourages fellowship among all the branches of the Religious Society of Friends.
Social Action and Lobbying Organizations
American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is a Quaker organization that promotes lasting peace with justice, as a practical expression of faith in action.
Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) is a Quaker lobby in the public interest.
Friends Committee on Legislation of California (FCLCA) advocates for California state laws that are just, compassionate and respectful of the inherent worth of every person.
Quaker United Nations Office works with people in the UN, multilateral organisations, government delegations, and non-governmental organisations, to achieve changes in international standards and practice.
Quaker Earthcare Witness (QEW) is a network of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in North America and other like-minded people who are taking spirit-led action to address ecological and social crises from a spiritual perspective, emphasizing Quaker process and testimonies, including continuing revelation.
Right Sharing of World Resources is a Quaker micro-credit organization that supports grassroots income-generating projects led by women in developing countries.
Quakers Concerned with Immigration Justice is a forum for Friends (Quakers) and friends to reflect on the physical and spiritual realities of global migration and immigrants, and to work for just, humane treatment for all children of God.
Publications
Friends Journal. The goal of Friends Journal is to serve the Quaker community and the wider community of spiritual seekers through the publication of articles, poetry, letters, art, and news that convey the contemporary experience of Friends.
Friends Journal Archive. A digital archive of every issue ever published. Must be a subsciber to access.
Western Friend is the official publication of Quakers in Pacific, North Pacific, and Intermountain Yearly Meetings.
General Information About Friends
Quaker Finder. (Friends General Conference)
www.Quaker.org. An exhaustive list of things Quaker maintained by Friends Publishing Company, the organization that publishes Friends Journal and QuakerSpeak.
Quaker Speak is a Quaker YouTube channel. "We interview Friends of all different backgrounds and ask them the core questions of our faith, and release a new video every Thursday." It is a project of Friends Journal.
Pacific Yearly Meeting's Faith and Practice describes the beliefs of Friends and the structures and processes of Pacific Yearly Meeting, and its Quarterly and Monthly Meetings. It also explains the spiritual foundation of these processes and of our way of worship.
Quakers in the World is a project of Chilterns Area Quaker Meeting in Buckinghamshire, England. It is a database of "Quakers in Action" which can be searched by who, what, where and when.
Voices of Friends is the online outreach of the Wider Quaker Fellowship. They are both programs of the Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC). The website offers links to information about Quakers from sources across the spectrum of Quaker belief.
QuakerSpeak Videos
Welcome to QuakerSpeak, a bi-weekly Quaker video project by Friends Journal.
As a lifelong Quaker, Arthur Larrabee was frustrated that he couldn’t answer the question, “What do Quakers believe?” So he set out to do just that.
What to Expect in Quaker Meeting for Worship
A guide for newcomers on what they can expect in Quaker Meeting for Worship on Sunday morning.
Examining the Quaker Peace Testimony
Contemporary Friends have a wide range of beliefs on various topics—all the more reason Adria Gulizia takes comfort in the universality of the peace testimony, a principle that stretches back to Quakerism’s roots in seventeenth-century England.
“I think that’s a beautiful thing that we still have unity in that even as our practice, our way of experiencing God and worshiping God, can be so different,” Adria says. “I’m still very much spoken to by that image of the lion laying down with the lamb and the peaceable kingdom of pounding our swords into plowshares, and instead of focusing on ways of imposing our will on others, really living into that nurturing faithfulness.”
Adria reflects further on how the values of the earliest Quakers continue to speak to us today in the latest issue of Friends Journal. Her essay, “Facing Evil, Finding Freedom,” elaborates on the Quaker view of atonement, and the belief that “freedom in the Spirit… is not metaphorical or abstract but real, concrete, and immediate.”