Our Witness in the World

“True godliness don’t turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it, and excites their endeavor to mend it: not hide their candle under a bushel, but set it upon a table in a candlestick.”

– William Penn, 1682

Quakerism is a lived spiritual path. We believe that “faith without works is dead,” but we also believe that works without faith are hollow. Because we understand that activism is often spawned from an egocentric center, Friends are urged to test their leadings that their outward works are grounded in the Spirit.

Historically, Quakers have been leaders in a host of causes – the abolition of slavery, women’s rights, prison reform, humane treatment of the mentally ill, fair treatment of Native Americans, and food relief following the First and Second World Wars, to name just a few.

At Goose Creek today, we encourage each other to heed the leadings of the Spirit and to seek out ways to bring peace, love, and justice to the world. In recent years, individual members and attenders have been led to engage in a host of causes, including supporting civil rights and Amnesty International, running Alternatives to Violence programs, ministering to incarcerated men, assisting the homeless, opposing capital punishment, advocating for gun control, opposing the war in Iraq, and working on environmental and sustainability issues.

As a faith community, Goose Creek is currently making financial contributions to a number of local, national, and international non-profits. Our greatest international support is for a mobile clinic operated by Midwives for Haiti which provides training for birth attendants in Haiti to lower maternal and infant mortality. The mobile clinic brings pre- and post-natal care to women in remote areas of Haiti.

Concerned by the growing gap between rich and poor in Loudoun County, Goose Creek recently began to support and volunteer at Mobile Hope, which serves Loudoun’s homeless and at-risk teenagers. Even closer to home, we host dinners and conversational English classes for guest workers at a nursery in Lincoln, and, working with our children, we have established a monarch butterfly garden on our meeting house grounds.

For more on the works by the wider Quaker community, please follow this link.