Membership
All are welcome to visit the Macon Quaker Worship Group, regardless of your background and prior experience, and we hope that any visit you have will be meaningful to you in some way.
Seekers may remain "active attenders" or eventually desire membership. There is very little meaningful distinction between members and non-members, and non-members are welcome to participate fully in the life of the meeting in almost every capacity. The process of becoming a member, therefore is a very personal one, and it has very few steps. However, each step is made with careful consideration, and the entire process may take a few months to complete.
At this time, any requests for membership will be directed to the Atlanta Friends Meeting (AFM), the full monthly meeting that is giving guidance and support to the Macon Worship Group. AFM provides more detail about the membership process here. Also, the Guide to Faith and Practice (2012) published by the Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting and Association (SAYMA) is very helpful in not only explaining membership but also in furthering understanding about Quaker faith and practice in general. You may also wish to search the Friends General Conference (FGC) website.
As Quakers in the U.S. have historically been concentrated in the Northeast, especially in and around Pennsylvania, Quakers in the Southeast (and elsewhere) may feel isolated. If you find that you are interested in Quakerism but live too far away for active participation to be possible, you may wish to subscribe to Friends Journal, a longtime monthly publication widely read by those aligned with FGC. You may wish to attend SAYMA's yearly meeting, historically held in June at Warren Wilson College in North Carolina. You may even wish to consider starting a new Quaker Worship Group in your area. The FGC website has excellent resources for aspiring new groups here.