So I’ll admit something: although I’m the senior editor of Friends Journal, and the QuakerSpeak YouTube video series is a project of Friends Journal, I’m still jealous of the way it provides a far superior entrée to Quaker thought and life. The way you get to know someone with such immediacy for ten minutes or so is very powerful.
Every year, QuakerSpeak videographer Jon Watts has put together DVDs with collections of that season’s videos. There’s a bit of irony in paying for DVDs of free videos but the collections are useful for sharing in meetinghouse fellowship rooms as part of First-day classes.
But this year’s DVD is special. It’s only eight videos and they’ve been curated with a very specific audience in mind: newcomers and first-time attenders. Because the entire DVD runs a bit under an hour, the per-disk price has been made lower. Low enough hopefully, for Quaker meetings to buy them in enough bulk that they can be given out to attenders who come to visit.
Quaker worship is an alien concept to a lot of religious seekers. And it’s very possible to attend a Quaker meeting and leave not knowing much more about Friends’ beliefs and values than a visitor had walking in that morning. Imagine having something you could hand them to teach them more about the diversity and depth of Quaker belief. That’s what these DVDs offer (and, if they’re from the cord-cutter generation, they can always use the printed playlist to open YouTube on their phones).
The difference between a curious person visiting once and a regular attender (and someday member) is sometimes just a bit of followup. I’m excited to see if meetings take up this opportunity. I think QuakerSpeak has been the most important Quaker outreach program of recent times; this DVD is yet another way that we’re bridging it with on-the-ground Quaker meetings. Check it out.
http://www.quakerspeak.com/dvd/
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