Reaching out to challenging areas
Martin Layton offers his perspective on recent research into public perceptions of Quakerism
The results of the market research conducted by DVL Smith Ltd at the request of Quaker Quest appear to have led us into a period of re-evaluation. Those Friends who attended the Big Outreach Conference in Swanwick, Derbyshire, on the weekend 22-24 January will have been startled by the evidence of non-Quakers’ lack of knowledge of our values and beliefs. We can no longer, it seems, rely on those seeking new spiritual insights to simply find us ‘when they are ready’, but must now enter a time of turning outwards, of making ourselves a more visible option. One of the first issues we confronted was our own prejudices about the way we refer to those who are, at first sight, not ‘like us’. While there are many Meeting houses situated in challenging urban areas, most, usually all, of their members are resident in far off, affluent suburbia. Some Friends expressed the feeling of there being an invisible divide, despite their physical proximity, between Meeting houses and these ‘hard to reach’ localities.
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