The Top 10 Reasons I Am a Quaker

Quaker Pastor Gregg Koskela came to Friends as a young adult, from various Evangelical Christian denominations. Here are the top 10 things that attracted him to Quakerism.

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Jon Watts

Jon Watts launched and directed the QuakerSpeak project for its first 6 seasons. Keep up to date with Jon’s work at his website.

11 thoughts on “The Top 10 Reasons I Am a Quaker

  1. Thank you for Quakerspeak. It is a welcome addition to my inbox every week. I particularly enjoyed this week’s top 10 reasons for being a Quaker and resonated with many of his comments.

  2. Terrific. Every Quaker ought to be able to say out loud at least the top THREE reasons they’re Quaker! (Besides potlucks, of course)

  3. Thank you. I am motivated to write my own 10 reasons for believing I can call myself a Quaker. If enough of us do this an interesting pamphlet could be published by Pendle Hill as handouts at our Meetings. Any one out there called to make this happen?

  4. I enjoyed, yes, enjoyed listening to the ten reasons here. I am in quite close in some of these ten, if not most. I so want to believe in the number one reason especially in being a part of God reconciling and restoring creation. I see signs of this happening at Standing Rock and the peaceful protests for keeping the water (the water of life) clean for future generations. I see the signs in the women in Poland and Mexico marching for their rights. I see the Catholic Pope, Pope Francis as one who is also working with a vibrant, transforming , and mindfulness who is walking with our God as a reconciling and restoring presence. God has been speaking to me recently about faith. We all wake up each and every day and walk in faith even if we do not profess a belief in God. God is showing me that all people walk in faith as people and all can be transformed.

  5. Ty, for Quakerspeak, I enjoyed listening to everyone who spoke different experiences. I loved hearing their top ten reasons for being a Quaker. Beautifully done.

  6. I was very moved by this. It was itself an example of the vibrancy and power fulness about which it spoke.
    Thank you.

  7. I am not a Quaker. . but am a “Quaker-phile” A friend of Quakers. . I am Lutheran. But, I agree with most of these. If it were not for a love of ritual and liturgy and the communion of friends at my church I would probably become a Quaker. Peace

  8. Gregg, thank you for your testimony! Thank you for following Christ’s leading to become a Quaker, and now my pastor at Newberg Friends. I love you and appreciate you so much. You are a great role model!

  9. Hi Greg,
    Your 10 reasons for being a Quaker are a great blue print for every one striving to live lives of authentic discipleship, no matter their denomination. The perennial question is whether we view Quakerism as a “religion” or as a “way of life”. Perhaps it is a mixture of both. Granted, it is a “non-dogmatic” faith, but being rooted in Christianity it comes with a religious/spiritual vocabulary that with a little refinement and nuance can still serve us well. My concern with those meetings that rely heavily on that vocabulary is that they tend toward a degree of homophobia. It would be refreshing to find an explicitly “christian” meeting that doesn’t also regard lgbt persons as part of the “brokenness” of creation that must be “restored in Christ”.

  10. I found Pastor Gregg Koskela’s 10 reasons very similar, almost identical to my reasons for being attracted to Quakerism. The silence, the listening, and the appreciation of the inner light in one and all rather than a reliance on words and rituals are most appealing.

  11. I just listened to a Quaker for the first time. Much of what you said resonated with me. I guess only the question I have is obedience to Christ. I too came from Evangelicalism and managed to taste several different streams in my journey. I have come to recognize my oneness with Christ. Christ in me is my hope of glory. This is my ‘obedience’ or better said, my ‘yieldedness.’ In this case Semantics are important to me. sue

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