Live Oak Friends Meeting is an un-programmed Friends (Quaker) Meeting.
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"We utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fightings with outward weapons, for any end or under any pretence whatsoever. And this is our testimony to the whole world. The spirit of Christ, by which we are guided, is not changeable, so as once to command us from a thing as evil and again to move unto it; and we do certainly know, and so testify to the world, that the spirit of Christ, which leads us into all Truth, will never move us to fight and war against anyone with outward weapons, neither for the kingdom of Christ, nor for the kingdoms of this world."
From A Declaration from the Harmless and Innocent People of God, called Quakers, Presented to Charles II, 1661
According to Pam Dunn, a British Friend,
"The peace testimony is not a form of words but a way of living, not a creed, but an active witness, not an ideology but an always imperfect and faltering attempt to live out a fundamental spiritual perception."
Quoted by Bruce Birchard.
Excerpts from Peace Be With You: A Study of the Spiritual Basis of the Friends Peace Testimony by Sandra Cronk:
"The fruit of the peace testimony is love manifested in countless ways: refusal to take part in military endeavors, finding a manner of living that does not exploit the labor and resources of others, working for a more just and equitable social, political, and economic order, and sacrificial giving to those in need."
"The root of this peace testimony is deep. It draws its nourishment from the power of God to bring transformation and healing into our inverted and wounded lives, from our deepening experience of Christ%#146;s love, and from our willingness to yield our lives to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Only as this testimony remains rooted deep in its nourishing soil is it able to produce fruit." (p. 3)
"Our peacemaking cannot wait until we feel completely loving. Feelings are notoriously unreliable guides. We are called to obedient love even though we may not be feeling very loving. Often it is through the performance of loving acts that loving feel-ings can be built up in us. We may start with small, perhaps very tiny, steps. It is only as we begin to allow Christ’s love to act in and through us that it can become a part of us."
"Action requires discernment of God's will. Discernment requires that attention be focused on our Inward Guide who speaks to us through prayer, Scripture, the discipline of our Meeting, and the voices of our brothers and sisters in the church-community. From Christ we learn where our lives need healing and where they need re-ordering. We discover what we are called to lay down and what we must take up. We shall probably find that many of the accepted patterns of life in our society are inconsistent with those of God’s kingdom."
