Faith and Practice

Welcome to an exploration of New England Yearly Meeting’s Faith and Practice

At our best, Friends live according to inner, rather than outward, promptings. The Inward Teacher is experienced as full of grace, eternal, not belonging to the self but entirely at the self’s center. This inner voice is the basis of our spiritual being and how we discern our values. No outside authority, be it church, government, employer, or family, speaks to us with the same authority or power. 

Interim F&P, Section III, p. 182, “A Peculiar People”

Perhaps you have come to these pages to explore more about what Quakers experience in their spiritual lives, or what words we use to try to capture the ineffable.

Perhaps you would like to think more about how such beliefs are lived out individually or corporately, through traditional practices or new realizations.

Whether you are a newcomer or a Friend of longstanding, these pages are designed to give you, or your entire Meeting, an opening into the Faith and Practice of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, both today and through our 350+ year history. It is material to guide, savor, inspire, challenge, and create discussion.

And, you will be a witness to an incredible spiritual undertaking. Each chapter of this book is a monument to the careful work of stating something strong and valuable that rings true for the whole of New England Yearly Meeting. Many persons and Meetings have had input along the way; at many stages, corporate approval was given to a chapter of the text. The material itself is a blending of the old and the new, wisdom from Quakers of yore and insights from Quakers today. A kaleidoscope of language and different reference points begin to capture the many facets of our common center.

Travel through this compilation page by page, or just check in where the content applies to your current journey. Most chapters have five parts: 

1. the text (both beliefs and practices)
2. “advices” on best practices
3. “queries” to ponder how the text might apply to you or your Meeting
4. “extracts” or quotations testifying to the variety of Friends’ experience
5. one or more appendices describing specific practical applications

Keep coming back to these pages. New materials are added over time. And tabs below describe how you can join this amazing corporate spiritual exercise of articulating the “one life, within whom we live and move and have our being.” (Thomas Kelly, 1938, referencing Acts 17:28)