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Monthly Meetings are the local congregations within unprogrammed yearly meetings. In Programed traditions the local congregations are referred to as Friends Churches. Monthly meetings hold meeting for business once a month. Monthly meetings are grouped together into Quarters. Quarters hold meeting for business quarterly and offer guidence and support to their member meetings. Two or more quarters can be gathered into a Yearly Meeting. Yearly meetings meet once a year to do business. Any member of any monthly meeting can (and are encouraged to) attend business sessions for their monthly, quarter, and yearly meeting.
Some yearly meetings belong to larger organizations, the three chief ones are United States being Friends General ConferenceThe Friends General Conference is a Quaker organization in the unprogrammed tradition of the Religious Society of Friends which primarily serves affiliated yearly and monthly meetings in the United States. and Canada. Friends General Conference hosts a ve (FGC), Friends United Meeting (FUM), and Evangelical Friends International (EFI). The FGC is theologically the most liberal of the three groups, while the EFI is the most conservative. FUM is the largest of the three. In addition, some monthly meetings belong to more than one of these larger organizations, while others are independent.
The Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) is the international Quaker organizations which loosely unifies the diverse groups. FWCC was set up at the 1937 World Conference of Friends in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, US, "to act in a consultative capacity to promote better understanding among Friends the world over, particularly by the encouragement of joint conferences and intervisitation, the collection and circulation of information about Quaker literature and other activities directed towards that end." About 175 representatives, appointed by the almost 70 affiliated yearly meetings and groups, meet together every three years at Triennials, aiming to provide links among Friends. FWCC bring together the largest varity of Friends in the world.
There is also various associated Friends organizations including: a lobbying organization based in Washington, DC, Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL); Friends Service Committees (usually organized at a national level - ie. American Friends Service Committee); and the Quaker United Nations Offices.
Early Quakerism was full of a sense of spiritual egalitarianism, which included a belief in the spiritual equality of the sexes—remarkable for that time. Both women and men were granted equal authority to speak in meetings for worship. George Fox's wife, Margaret Fell, was equally vocal and literate as her husband, publishing several tracts in Quakerism's early days.
This equal status extended further into the social realm, and Quakers often ignored the social distinctions of the seventeenth century. This translated into several behaviours which offended those of high rank: Friends refused to doff their hat to those of higher status ("hat honor"), and also addressed high-ranking persons using the familiar forms of "thee" and "thou", instead of the respectful "you". (Later, as "thee" and "thou" disappeared from everyday English usage, many Quakers continued to use these words as a form of "plain speech", though the original reason for this usage had disappeared; their usage was also grammatically distinctive, saying "thee is" instead of "thou art", a holdover from a dialect formerly common in the north of England. This practice is rare among Quakers today.)
Early Friends did not believe in performing any special rites or sacraments, believing that holiness can exist in all the activities of one's life -- all of life was sacred. Thus they did not perform baptisms as a rite of membership, and their method of worship was considered unorthodox and heretical. Quaker marriage ceremonies were performed in the manner as worship, meaning there was no priest or high official to conduct the ceremony and sanction the union.
Early Friends also objected to the names of the days and months in the English language, because many of them referred to Roman gods and emperors. As a result, the days of the week were known as "First Day", "Second Day", and so forth. Similarly, the months of the year were "First Month", "Second Month", and so forth. Many Friend's organizations continue to use the "simple calendar" for official records.
Friends believe that the Bible is the word of God as interpreted by each person. Each Friend must interpret the Bible for themselves in the light of the same Spirit that they consider to have inspired the Bible. Thus Friends believe that divine revelation is not restricted to the Bible, but rather continues even today (this doctrine is known as continuing revelation). From this interpretation a common set of beliefs emerged, which became known as testimonies. Testimonies are not formal static documents, but rather a shared collection or view of how Quakers relate to God. Testimonies cannot be taken one at a time, as they are interrelated. As a philosophical system, they are coherent, even outside of Christian theology.
While the list of testimonies, like all aspects of Friends theology, is evolving the following is a generally accepted list.
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