Thus says Yahweh, "Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, 'Where is the good way?' and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls."
Jeremiah 6:16 (World English Bible)
If you are seeking an open and authentic spiritual community where you can feel comfortable to share your beliefs, then you might want to experience Foothills Friends Fellowship. We are a small Christ-centered Quaker worship group that meets in Greenville, SC.
Like other Friends, we have no formal creed. Our meetings for worship are unprogrammed and are based on silent communing with God and awaiting the continuing revelation of the Holy Spirit.
Quaker values include peace, equality, simplicity, integrity, community and social outreach. We believe that the sacred occurs in our everyday living and not just in a building one hour per week. Quakers do not depend upon rituals or outward sacraments, but on direct communion with God.
The Quaker denomination has several major branches. Here at Foothills Friends Fellowship we are currently seeking affiliation with the Conservative Quaker community. We have visited and established friendships withing the North Carolina Yearly Meeting. The term "Conservative Quaker" is not a reference to fundamentalist or conservative religious beliefs. Instead it refers to the conservative Quakers' efforts to keep alive the original Quaker ideals and spirit.
We at Foothills Friends Fellowship are deeply grateful to The Anchorage, a contemplative Christian ministry. After meeting in homes for a year and a half, Foothills Friends Fellowship accepted an invitation from The Anchorage to begin meeting at its location on Broadus Ave.
If you are looking for more information, a good site to visit is The Conservative Friend, an outreach of the Ohio Yearly Meeting.
Let us also suggest a visit to the Crossroad Friends website. The Crossroad Friends Worship Group is in Michigan, but a visit to their website would be fruitful if you are interested in knowing more about Quaker history. Our Michigan Friends have provided valuable links to a great amount of online reading material.
There is also the Quaker Faith and Fellowship Site, a worldwide cyberspace gathering of Friends. Here is a quote from the site's home page: "It is in this spirit that Quaker Faith and Fellowship has endeavored to open a cyberspace community which offers cyberspace meeting for worship to whoever, whenever and wherever need is felt."
As you can see, conservative Quakers are small in number, but extremely active in many places around the world. If you are local to Greenville, SC, we cordially invite you to our local meeting. If you have arrived at this site from another place, we encourage you to find out more about the Quaker community by exploring the rest of this site, or the links you will find here.
Foothills Friends Fellowship is active in social outreach programs. As our spiritual fellowship grows, we will be led by the Spirit to begin many new endeavors to assist the local community.
Last year, Foothills Friends Fellowship made a decision to help support the nearby Triune Mercy Center. Triune provides meals for the less fortunate of our community, and does so every day of the week. At this time, Foothills Friends Fellowship prepares and serves lunch on the third Sunday of each month at the Triune Mercy Center. On average, we are feeding seventy-five homeless people at the facility at each meal. Our next scheduled time for this activity is August 22, 2010. We have had many friends outside our meeting join us for and contribute to these events, and we sincerely thank them for their efforts. In addition, Foothills Friends Fellowship completed, at the end of February 2009, a volunteer effort to improve the facilities in the non-foods distribution room at Triune. Our group purchased the materials and spent three days renovating the clothing shelves and clothing racks.
On July 22, 2010 Foothills Friends Fellowship hosted a talk on the importance of eating locally grown and produced foods. Featured guest speakers were Ed Wilmot of Greenville Organic Foods Organization and Samantha Wallace, Co-Founder & Publisher of Edible Upcountry magazine. The event, which drew a nice crowd, was at the Greenville Library, Main Branch, in Meeting Room C. MORE INFO