Information for New & Prospective Members

A complete guide to membership in the Sandy Spring Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends can be downloaded by clicking the button below. The guide includes (1) a brief overview of Quaker history; (2) thoughts on the meaning of membership; (3) instructions on what steps to take to become a member; (4) the responsibilities of membership; and (5) an overview of Baltimore Yearly Meeting’s Faith & Practice.

Standing Committees and Working Groups

Sandy Spring Friends Meeting is a large Quaker faith community with many active members and attenders. The standing committees and working groups address the business and care of the Meeting. In you are interested in joining a committee, contact Nominating Committee; if you’d like to join a working group, contact that group’s clerk.

Advancement & Outreach: Welcoming attenders and visitors to the Meeting; providing information on Quaker faith and practices through written materials, the Meeting’s website, seeker sessions, and wider community events

Building Care: Supervising the Meeting House and Community House usage; ensuring the maintenance and security of the Meeting’s buildings

Change Group (Working Group): Educating Meeting members about antiracism; advocating for changes to Meeting policies and procedures in accordance with antiracist commitments

Community Life: Organizing special events for members of the Meeting community; coordinating coffee hours and potluck meals; assisting with receptions for wedding and memorial meetings; coordinating food arrangements for Quarterly meetings; maintaining kitchen supplies

Finance: Working with operating costs of the Meeting; compiling the annual budget; maintaining the Meeting’s finance guidelines

Friends in Unity with Nature: Providing environmental information and resources to the Meeting; advocating for the earth’s ecological integrity

Graveyard and Grounds: Assisting families and Meeting members in all aspects of burials, including assigning grave lots, maintaining graveyard records, and facilitating internment; ensuring care and upkeep of the lawns, memorial grove, and landscaping on Meeting property

Growing Our Meeting (Working Group): Developing and implementing ideas for growing the Meeting membership

Library: Providing stewardship of the Meeting’s book and periodical collection, including purchasing, cataloging, and displaying new books; caring for and sharing information about the collection

Marriage and Family Relations: Overseeing marriages performed under the care of the Meeting or held in the Meeting House; providing marriage and family life enrichment events and information

Membership and Spiritual Care: Interviewing prospective members of the Meeting; recommending Welcome and Nurture Committees for new members; maintaining concern for the physical and spiritual well-being of individual members and attenders; providing planning assistance and referral to members and regular attenders who find themselves in times of crisis; providing modest financial assistance

Ministry and Counsel: Attending to the vitality of the spiritual life of the Meeting as a whole, such as Meetings for Worship, the health of committees, and memorial meetings; composing the annual Spiritual State of the Meeting report

Office: Maintaining the communications, calendars, database, historical records, and office supplies of the Meeting; serves as a resource to committees and individuals

Peace: Seeking to understand, interpret, and actively promote the historic and modern peace testimony of the Religious Society of Friends

Personnel: Recruiting, supporting, supervising, and evaluating Meeting employees

Refugee Assistance Working Group: Assisting refugee families with housing, medical, and other basic needs; providing fellowship and community to refugees and their families

Religious Education: Operating the First Day School (Sunday School) for children, including teacher recruitment and support, curriculum, and materials

Social Concerns: Attending to relations among all peoples, primarily in the local community; informing the Meeting of, and coordinating support for, social service organizations

Trustees: Overseeing the real estate, personal property, and investing funds of the Meeting

Working Group on Meeting’s Financial Resources: Outlining plans for the responsible allocation of special bequests

Members have access to our online directory of contact information for members and attenders. To acquire a username and password for the directory, contact the Meeting Coordinator at mtgcoord@sandyspring.org. Click the button below to access the directory’s online portal.

Local Meetings

Related Organizations

American Friends Service Committee, since 1917, has been on the forefront of some of the most important social movements in working for a more just, peaceful world.

Baltimore Yearly Meeting Camps is a vibrant, diverse, and youth-centered community that welcomes you with open arms. Supported each year in Sandy Spring Monthly Meeting’s operating budget, BYM Camps is rooted in Quaker values, fosters connection and interdependence, and promotes a radically welcoming, genuinely diverse environment for young Friends ages 9-17.

Baltimore Yearly Meeting’s Vision Statement, approved at Annual Session 2011 and amended at Annual Session 2016, outlines BYM’s intentions to listen deeply and inclusively, welcome all, aspire to live as a blessed community, nourish Quaker worship and service, expand opportunities for Friends to meet and know each other, and serve others in love.

Beacon Hill Friends House is a center for Quaker learning and action, the home of Beacon Hill Friends Meeting, and a residential intentional community grounded in Quaker principals.

Friends Committee on National Legislation has been an unwavering voice for peace and vehicle for change on Capitol Hill for 80 years. FCNL facilitates personal transformation through democratic participation among its vast community of activists.

Friends Council on Education provides leadership in drawing Friends schools together in unity of spirit and cooperative endeavors.

Friends General Conference, founded in 1900, is an association of local and regional Quaker organizations primarily in the US and Canada, consisting of 16 yearly meetings and 12 directly affiliated monthly meetings. FGC envisions a vital and growing Religious Society of Friends, a faith that deepens spiritually, welcomes newcomers, builds supportive and inclusive community, and provides loving service and witness in the world.

Friends United Meeting is a collection of Christ-centered Quakers, embracing 37 yearly meetings and associations, thousands of local gatherings, and hundreds of thousands of individuals. Joined together through a shared experience of God and united in the common ministries of leadership and resource development, evangelism, communication, and global partnership, they form a beloved partnership through cross-cultural service.

Friends Wilderness Center, founded in 1974, serves to hold the door open for all those who seek the restorative power of nature. Arising from and adhering to Quaker practice, FWC offers hiking, camping, and nature programs at its location in Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, about 1 and 1/2 hours from Sandy Spring.

Friends World Committee for Consultation represents Quakers around the worlds, spanning a rich diversity of regional cultures, beliefs, and styles of worship. FWCC exists to bring fellowship to all Quakers around the world and speak on behalf of Quakers in international spaces such as the United Nations.

Pendle Hill is a Quaker study, retreat, and conference center welcoming all for Spirit-led learning and community outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Pendle Hill Pamphlets are short, readable “tracts for the times,” first suggested for publication by Quaker devotional writer Douglas Steere in 1933. The pamphlet series began the next year and the tradition continues to this day with over 480 pamphlets published to date.

Quaker House, based in Fayetteville, North Carolina (home of Fort Liberty), is a manifestation of the Friends Peace testimony that provides counseling and support to service members who are questioning their role in the military; educates them, their families, and the public about military issues; and advocates for a more peaceful world.

Woodbrooke is an international Quaker learning and research organization based in Britain that provides opportunities for learning, connection, and worship which are rooted in the Quaker tradition and open to all.

Quaker Bibliography

The following resources are available for download or purchase by clicking on the links below. When possible, we recommend supporting a Friends-affiliated vendor, such as FGC Quakerbooks or the Pendle Hill Online Bookstore. Many of these volumes are also available for borrowing in our library.

Baltimore Yearly Meeting. Faith and Practice, 1988. Revised Draft 2013.

Brinton, Howard H. & Margaret Hope Bacon. Friends for 350 Years. Pendle Hill, 2002.

Chase, Steve. Letters to a Fellow Seeker: A Short Introduction to the Quaker Way. Quaker Press of FGC, 2012.

Cooper, Wilmer A. A Living Faith. Friends United Press, 1990.

Freiday, Dean, ed. Barclay’s Apology in Modern English. Barclay Press, 1967.

Gates, Thomas. Members One of Another: The Dynamics of Membership in Quaker Meeting. Pendle Hill Pamphlet #371, 2004.

Julye, Vanessa. Radical Transformation: Long Overdue for the Religious Society of Friends. Pendle Hill Pamphlet #476, 2022.

Kelly, Thomas R. A Testament of Devotion. HarperOne, 1941. Reprint Edition (August 2, 1996).

Martin, Marcelle. Our Life is Love. Inner Light Books. 2016.

McDaniel, Donna and Vanessa Julye. Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship: Quakers, African Americans, and the Myth of Racial Justice. Quaker Press of FGC, 2009.

Morley, Barry. Beyond Consensus: Salvaging Sense of the Meeting. Pendle Hill Pamphlet #307, 1993.

Moulton, Phillips, ed. The Journal and Major Essays of John Woolman. Oxford University Press, 1971.

Nickalls, John, ed. Journal of George Fox. Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1985.

Punshon, John. Encounter with Silence: Reflections from the Quaker Tradition. Friends United Press, 2006.

Punshon, John. Portrait in Grey: A Short History of the Quakers. Quaker Home Service, 1984.

Steere, Douglas V., ed. Quaker Spirituality: Selected Writing. The Classics of Western Spirituality. Paulist Press, 1984.

Taber, William. Four Doors to Meeting for Worship. Pendle Hill Pamphlet #306, 1992.

Taber, William. The Mind of Christ: Bill Taber on Meeting for Business. Pendle Hill Pamphlet #406, 2010.

Thurman, Howard. Mysticism and the Experience of Love. Pendle Hill Pamphlet #115, 1961.

Weaver, Harold D. ed., et. al. Black Fire: African American Quakers on Spirituality and Human Rights. Quaker Press of FGC, 2011.