Faith and Practice

About the First Edition of Northern Yearly Meeting’s Faith and Practice

This first edition of Northern Yearly Meeting’s Faith and Practice (© 2017) supplies our statement of faith and descriptions of Quaker practice as we aspire to live our faith in the upper Midwest of the United States. The faith section includes perspectives on the Religious Society of Friends’ historically rooted Testimonies (Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality, Care for the Earth), and this is followed by sections covering Quaker practice and history.

Faith & Practice cover

The Practice sections offer guidance for the Quaker processes which engage our community, including the nurture of our children, marriage within the meeting, and every day decision-making. A brief history of Northern Yearly Meeting’s first 30 years is presented, and a summary of Quaker history back to its founding.

This edition of the Faith and Practice of Northern Yearly Meeting includes queries in each chapter. Effort has been made to write these queries so that in most cases it is not possible to give a simple Yes or No answer. The goal has been to support more detailed responses, new each time. We encourage you to add your own queries, as you use these chapters.

How to get a copy of Faith & Practice

Additions to this edition

Our Process

The Faith & Practice of NYM is unique to our yearly meeting; that is, it was not adopted as a whole from some other yearly meeting.  No chapter is the work of one person.  Faith & Practice Committee members varied over 20 plus years of writing and publishing, and cooperatively finalized each chapter.  Drafts of a  single theme were sent to all groups in NYM; the committee collected feedback and rewrote many times. Each chapter received  final approval from NYM.  Approval dates are included at the end of each chapter.