Applying For Membership

Clearness Committee for Membership

CLEARNESS COMMITTEE FOR MEMBERSHIP:

Suggested Queries and Topics

 

The following questions are intended primarily to provoke thought and discussion. There are no right answers to them. Nor are they addressed only to those who contemplate requesting formal membership in the Religious Society of Friends. On the contrary, like the Advices and Queries set forth in the Intermountain Yearly Meeting Faith & Practice, they are questions all members of the community, whether formal members or not, may wish to ask themselves as seekers, and so as Friends of the Truth.

The queries and topics listed below often arise naturally in the course of a Clearness Committee meeting with an applicant for membership. They are intended to assist you in gaining clarity on the meaning and implications of membership in the Society of Friends, and to help committee members get to know you at a deeper level and to enable them to share their own spiritual experience with you. All Clearness Committee meetings are conducted in a worshipful manner of openness and caring. It may be appropriate to hold several meetings before both the applicant and the committee reach clarity.

  • What are some important milestones in your spiritual journey?
  • How have you come to feel that Boulder Meeting may be your spiritual home?
  • How do you expect membership to contribute to your spiritual journey?
  • How have you experienced and come to understand the Light?
  • How does the Religious Society of Friends meet your needs for worship and fellowship?
  • What has attracted you to Friends’ articulated faith and practices? Are there some that you find puzzling or disturbing?
  • Which of the Testimonies of Friends speak most strongly to you? Which Testimonies most confront your present life?
  • Though Quakerism is historically rooted in Christianity, the Society of Friends has no creed to which members are asked to subscribe, and no formal hierarchy or priesthood to guide us to doctrinal unity. Friends’ beliefs accordingly range widely. Do you have strong beliefs of your own? If so, how do you respond to the diversity of others’ beliefs?
  • Friends have always held that their faith is more than a set of beliefs; it is a way of life. How do you find that your own beliefs affect your daily life in the family, with friends, in the wider society, or at work?
  • How do you anticipate that you can contribute to the life of the Meeting in matters of business as well as spirituality?
  • Do you have questions for the committee?
  • Are there any special moral or spiritual concerns you would like to discuss with us?

 

Return to Applying for Membership page.