Winona Quakers: Who are we?
Schedule and Contacts
   Location, Schedule and Contacts

Who are we?
   Who are Quakers?

What to expect in Meeting for Worship
   What to expect in Meeting for Worship

Quaker Testimonies
   Quaker Principles and Testimonies

Other Quaker Web sites
   Other Quaker Web Sites

Contact Us

Please contact us at (507) 452-0803.

Send email to
troberts
@hbci.com

Winona Friends Meeting (Preparative)
(Religious Society of Friends),
Winona, MN

Who are we?

Our local Winona group is a group that each week has between 10 and 20 worshippers, both families and individuals. Worshippers come from Winona and nearby Minnesota and Wisconsin. There are other Quaker worship groups in Rochester, MN, and LaCrosse, WI. Though there were Quakers in early Winona history (Windom was a Friend), our group has been meeting on a regular basis only for a bit over twenty years.

We are not a full monthly meeting, but are a Preparatory Meeting under the care of Minneapolis Friends Meeting. We worship weekly, have regular business meetings, undertake community projects, support Friends organizations and get together for social events.

The Religious Society of Friends (commonly called Quakers) is a diverse collection of worshipping communities that do not have a set creed, but that are held together by a common set of testimonies that we feel called upon to witness. The best known of these testimonies is called the Peace testimony, and it says that we will not prepare for or participate in wars. See Quaker Principles and Testimonies for more information.

Historically, the Religious Society of Friends was started in the mid-1600's when a group of people in England became dissatisfied with the established Christian churches there (both Anglican and Puritan). Perhaps the best known Friend was William Penn, who founded Pennsylvania. In 1688, a Friends Meeting in Pennsylvania (meeting together with a Mennonite congregation) became the first religious body in North America to formally condemn slavery. Quakers have a place in the history of American feminism, as three of the five leaders of the original conference on women's rights held in Senaca Falls, NY, in 1848, were Friends, including Susan B. Anthony. After World War Two, the American Friends Service Committee was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for relief work.




Revised 1/17/2004 vl