Grass Valley Friends Meeting

Join us in Worship
Grass Valley Friends Meeting

You are Welcome Here!

We are an unprogrammed Friends meeting. We sit in silent, expectant worship. We gather to seek and share spiritual nourishment, care for one another, and serve the wider world.

We believe that every person is loved by the Divine Spirit, which dwells in everyone and everything. There are Quakers of all ages, religious backgrounds, races, education, sexual orientations, gender identities, and classes.

Who We Are

We are part of the worldwide Religious Society of Friends, which began over 300 years ago in England. Locally, we have about 80 members and attendees. The membership total worldwide is about 200,000. Please click here for more information about the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers.

We come together in worship:

To listen to God
To know and be known by God
To grow in our faith
To be changed
To support each other, and
To help one another do what God asks us to do

Our time together looks like this:

Sitting quietly together
Listening if someone is moved by the Spirit to speak
Including children for a time before a children’s program
Shaking hands when worship ends; and greeting those around us

You are welcome to join us as you are. Dress as you feel comfortable.

Please feel free to ask the person who ends the meeting any questions you might have after Worship.

When We Meet

First Day (Sundays)

9 a.m. Singing
10:00 a.m. Meeting for Worship and Children’s Program and child care (all ages welcome).

We also come together for other events and programs, see below for details.

Where We Meet

NOTE: We are doing hybrid Meetings for Worship, Please use Contact form further below to receive details on how to attend in person or on Zoom..

New location January 4, 2026
We have moved our Meeting for Worship to Peace Lutheran, located at 828 West Main Street, Grass Valley.

Prior Location

Our prior meeting house was located at 13075 Woolman Lane, Nevada City, California. It was on 232 acre site that is the ancestral land of the Nisenan people. Here there was once a thriving Nisenan village called Yulića. For the past seven decades this land was owned by Quakers and called Sierra Friends Center or Woolman. However, in 2024 ownership of the land was transferred back to the Nisenan. It is becoming, once again, the home of the Nevada City Ranchería Nisenan Tribe, and they enabled us to continue to hold our Meetings for Worship on their land. As a Meeting, we continue to discern meaningful ways to support the sovereignty of the Nisenan people. We are so very grateful of their generosity. Below is the acknowledgement we read at each of our Meeting for Worship held on Nisenan land.

About Us

What Do We Believe?

Friends believe that there is that of God in each human being and that each individual is capable of having direct communion with the divine without the need for clergy or doctrine. We wait with hearts and minds open to “the still small voice” within. We refrain from fixing our faith in a formal set of words because we feel that experience and knowledge of the divine lie beyond words.

How Do We Live?

We strive to show in our lives and interactions with others our belief in peace, simplicity, and equality. We encourage sincerity in our common aspiration toward spirit-filled living. We believe our worship strengthens us in our daily lives and that our lives, well-lived, are worshipful.

Our first Meeting for Worship at Peace Lutheran

Wonderful image and words from our December 2025 Newsletter

Families and Events

Kindling Quaker Earthcare: Practical Steps and Prophetic Vision with Keith Runyan, General Secretary of Quaker Earthcare Witness

Event is Sunday, May 4, 2025 at 1130am located at Grass Valley Friends Meeting, 13075 Woolman Lane, Nevada City, Ca.

Hands Off Our Democracy Protest

Presidents Day Protest

Housewarming celebration for Mary and Gordon’s new home & Gordon’s 80th birthday

Fellowship potluck after Meeting for Worship

Families

Families and children are welcome at Grass Valley Friends Meeting!

There is a Children’s Program every Sunday.

On Fifth Sundays, we hold an Intergenerational Meeting for Worship. Adults and children gather together for 20 minutes of storytelling, 20 minutes of signing, and 20 minutes of silence.

Please use our Contact Form for more information.

Regional Friends Gatherings

Grass Valley Friends Meeting is part of the College Park Quarterly Meeting and Pacific Yearly Meeting.

You are welcome, Friend.

You are welcome to attend the programs, meetings, and events we hold throughout the year.

On the second Sunday of each month, after our Meeting for Worship and fellowship, we have a meeting where we conduct the business of our Quaker meeting. We consider this to also be an opportunity for worship, so we call it Meeting for Worship on the Occasion for Business.

We offer adult education programs on the fourth Sunday of each month, after the Meeting for Worship and fellowship. There is a different program every month. These programs, which we call Spiritual Life, focus on exploring spiritual experience. Some programs include

· Writing a spiritual autobiography,

· Mystical experience and Quakerism,

· Eco-spirituality, the climate crisis, and environmental justice,

· Relationships in the Quaker community,

· Spiritual guidance

When there is a fifth Sunday in a given month, we hold a Family Meeting for Worship. Children and adults gather and spend 20 minutes in storytelling, 20 minutes in singing, and 20 minutes in silent worship.

Please use the Contact Form to get a list of our current events and programs.

Our life is love, and peace, and tenderness; and bearing one with another, and forgiving one another, and not laying accusations one against another; but praying one for another, and helping one another up with a tender hand

Isaac Pennington