When looking at how to conduct outreach activities, to make Quakers more visible, there is one big elephant trap that needs to be avoided.

Only 35% of UK adults say they are Christians.

Only 56% of that 35% say they believe in “God” – whatever that word means in that context.

So, 18% of UK adults believe in something like the traditional Christian God.

Outreach containing the word “God”, for example, is unlikely to be of interest to 82% of UK adults, so to engage with those UK adults using the word “God” rather than Light, Source, Spirit etc is severely conterproductive.

Using the word “God”can raise questions in the reader’s mind, for example:

• Which God?
• What do these people mean by ‘God’?
• Why should I read on – I don’t believe in ‘God’
• How relevent is this to me – do I carry on reading?

By extension, words like ‘worship’ are quite likely to switch off any interest the casual reader or listener has – the explanation may follow, but the damage is done.

As Quakers, we need to be constantly aware of the following:

• In 1966: Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM), the central body for UK Quakers, officially removed the need for a “belief in God” as a membership requirement.
• in 1994: BYM clarified that membership is open to everyone “seeking truth, meaning, and a deeper spiritual life,” regardless of religious affiliation. This marked a second significant shift towards inclusivity.

Nearly sixty years since British Quakers formalised inclusivity and thirty years since that was strongly endorsed, we now have a very mixed community with a wide range of beliefs, tied together by a common set of values we all subscribe to. However, we need to be aware that the audience we are addressing with outreach is not like that. Anything that has the flavour of formal religion is not going to get much of a hearing – the genie is out of the ‘religion’ bottle, and lives happily in the fresh air of spirituality. That is where we will find future Quakers.