The Quaker Awakening constitutes one of the great revivals within Christianity. Particularly significant was its challenge to official religion. The first Friends believed that religious monopoly, whether Protestant or Catholic, weakened the Christian faith and fostered unspiritual, timeserving ministry. Therefore they urged freedom of religion, trusting the power of the Lord rather than civil coercion, to advance the Gospel. Friends were a people gathered to Christ, communing with God in vital worship and fellowship, witnessing the good news of Christ’s Kingdom in a world shattered by civil and religious conflict. Their message met resistance. Thousands suffered imprisonment and hundreds died for religious freedom.

These Christians first referred to themselves as "publishers of Truth," "children of the Light," or "the camp of the Lord." Gradually they came to prefer the term "Friends" in accordance with Jesus' words "You are my friends if you do whatever I command" (John 15:12-15). Their critics dubbed these enthusiastic Christians "Quakers," a nickname that has become a symbol of integrity rather than a term of derision.

Friends used the word "church" to describe the people of God, not the building in which the people met. "Meetinghouse" became their word for the building in which the church gathered to worship. About a century after the movement began, the term "Society of Friends" came into general use. The word "society" conveniently distinguished Friends and other legal but dissenting groups from the established Church of England. In the twentieth century "Friends Church" became the preferred term in some yearly meetings, including Northwest Yearly Meeting.

The Quaker Awakening constituted a fast-growing missionary movement during its earliest decades. People in England joined by the thousands. Within a few years Friends became a major force in Colonial America. People welcomed a Christianity freed from state authority and priestly ritual. They liked an emphasis upon Christ's inward baptism with the Holy Spirit and the Quaker concern for practical holiness.