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2015-03-02 Interim F&P Edits Autohyphen.Indd INTERIM FAITH AND PRACTICE 2014 (2015 EDITION) NEW EN GLAND YE AR LY M EE TI NG OF F RIEN DS NEW ENGLAND YEARLY MEETING INTERIM FAITH AND PRACTICE 2014 Updated, with Study Guide, 2015 Table of Contents 1 INTRODUCTION 3 Section 1. THE CHAPTERS WITH PRELIMINARY APPROVAL 4 PREFACE 5 Chapter 1: Illustrative Experiences of Friends 46 Chapter 2: Worship 62 Chapter 3: Corporate Discernment in Meetings for Business 81 Chapter 9: A Brief History of Friends in New England 106 Chapter 10: Revisions to This Faith and Practice 107 Chapter 11: General Advices and Queries 122 Section 2. THE APPENDICES WORKING PAPER 181 Section 3. 182 A Peculiar People 188 Moving Forward to the Remaining Chapters: The Integration of Faith and Life 191 SOURCES AND REFERENCES 203 STUDY GUIDE Introduction Since 2002 our trust that God is guiding us in the work of Faith and Practice revision has been grounded in a three-fold path of faith: faith in our Guide, faith in continuing revelation, and faith that we can be guided together. We have been clear since our beginnings that we wanted not just to revise the 1985 book, but to engage with the Yearly Meeting in re-visioning it by identifying where the Life is among us, and articulating and nurturing it. We intended our work to be a stimulus to discussion and prayerful discernment within the meetings, which would in turn inform our work. It has done both, and we are grateful for the insights of many meetings and individuals. We also affirm that these explo- rations are as valuable, or more so, than the final book. During the 2013 NEYM Sessions we heard that Friends felt it would be useful to have the work done so far compiled into a book that could be held in the hand and set on a bedside table. At the same time the Publications and Communications Committee clerk offered to explore supporting our work. We are grateful for the work of many on that committee and beyond who worked to bring this project to fruition. This Interim Faith and Practice is being made available at this time so that the Yearly Meeting may live with it, use it and con- tinue to be fellow workers with us as we proceed to the remaining chapters on how our faith is lived out in our personal lives, in our meetings, and in the wider world. If the work were only that of the people on the Faith and Practice Revision Committee it would be incomplete. We need to be held closely by the body of the Yearly Meeting and to feel the motion of the Spirit among us. We are grateful for your responsiveness. The first section is Chapters Given Preliminary Approval, which means that they are substantially acceptable to the Yearly Meeting and are not expected to change except perhaps in very minor ways that may 1 become desirable as the book nears completion. The second sec- tion, the Appendices Working Paper, has received considerable seasoning and is on its way to being ready, but it needs further seasoning. Please use these Appendices and let us know how well they serve. Are there other elements to add before they are fully useful? We are aware that some of the descriptive parts might more properly belong in the body of the book yet to be written. The third section articulates the vision that has guided us from the beginning and our sense of how this will inform our work as we move forward. 2 Section 1 CHAPTERS GIVEN PRELIMINARY APPROVAL A text given preliminary approval is substantially acceptable to Friends for inclusion in the final book. The time period between preliminary and final approval will likely be more than one year. This will allow both the Committee and the Yearly Meeting to have larger sections in front of them before giving final approval to any, knowing that the precise form of a given section will be influenced by what comes before and after. Complete references to extracts are listed by their number at the back of the book. 3 PREFACE This book is a witness to the lived faith of Quakers in New England from the mid-17th century to the present. It is a devo- tional resource and a handbook of procedures. When procedural questions arise, this book is designed to be a helpful guide, not a rigid instruction manual. Through corporate discernment, we change our structures and procedures in responsive obedience to God. This revision of NEYM Faith and Practice reflects a range of spiritual experience among Friends. Each selection retains the original language used by the individual or faith community. Quotations are identified in the text by author and date. Complete references for each source text will be found on page 191. The book is also available electronically at neym.org/fandp/interim. 4 ILLUSTRATIVE 1 EXPERIENCES OF FRIENDS This chapter states some essentials of Quaker faith, not by articulating them, but by expressing them through the living personal and corporate experiences of Friends. Friends find that faith grows and matures through reflection on experiences of the Light. This rhythm of experience and reflection continues throughout life, opening us to continuing revelation. An aspect of grace is that the Spirit communicates with us in words, images, and feelings that engage us. It is our task as indi- viduals and as meetings to discover how to live faithfully a path we have been given. The Spirit may break into our lives in powerful moments of altered consciousness or clarity. The Spirit may also work in a gradual unfolding of understanding and confidence. Often our lives contain a combination of both. What matters is living with integrity, faithful to our own experience. It is often hard to find words to convey our experiences. How do we express that which is beyond description? Some may be led to use art, music, movement, or other non-verbal ways to express it. Let us listen not only to words, but to actions and lives which witness to the workings of the Spirit. These extracts show the variety of ways Friends have been inspired to convey in words their experience of seeking and finding truth. While each one expresses a particular experience, together they convey something of the breadth and diversity among Friends, both past and present. They invite us to listen to the spirit from which the words arose. The Spirit is timeless and Friends may find in the extracts a sim- ilarity of experience which serves to draw us together into that which is eternal. 5 Illustrative Experiences of Friends CONVICTION AND CONVINCEMENT “And this I knew experimentally.” George Fox 1647 Now after I had received that opening from the Lord that to be 1.01 bred at Oxford or Cambridge was not sufficient to fit a man to be a minister of Christ, I regarded the priests less, and looked more after the dissenting people ... But as I had forsaken all the priests, so I left the separate preachers also, and those called the most experienced people; for I saw there was none among them all that could speak to my condition. And when all my hopes in them and in all men were gone, so that I had nothing out- wardly to help me, nor could tell what to do, then, Oh then, I heard a voice which said, ‘There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition,’ and when I heard it my heart did leap for joy. Then the Lord did let me see why there was none upon the earth that could speak to my condition, namely, that I might give him all the glory; for all are concluded under sin, and shut up in unbelief as I had been, that Jesus Christ might have the pre-eminence, who enlightens, and gives grace, and faith, and power. Thus, when God doth work who shall [hinder] it? And this I knew experimentally. George Fox 1647 In the year 1652 it pleased the Lord to draw [George Fox] toward 1.02 us ... My then husband, Thomas Fell, was not at home at that time, but gone to the Welsh circuit, being one of the Judges of Assize, and our house [Swarthmoor Hall] being a place open to entertain ministers and religious people at, one of George Fox[’s] friends brought him hither, where he stayed all night. And the next day, being a lecture or a fast-day, he went to Ulverston stee- plehouse, but came not in till people were gathered; I and my children had been a long time there before. And when they were singing before the sermon, he came in; and when they had done singing, he stood up upon his seat or form and desired that he might Illustrative Experiences of Friends 6 have liberty to speak. And he that was in the pulpit said he might ... .[George Fox] went on and said, How that Christ was the Light of the world and lighteth every man that cometh into the world; and that by this Light they might be gathered to God, etc. And I stood up in my pew, and I wondered at his doctrine, for I had never heard such before. And then he went on, and opened the Scriptures, and said, ‘The Scriptures were the prophets’ words and Christ’s and the apostles’ words, and what as they spoke they enjoyed and possessed and had it from the Lord.’ And said, ‘Then what had any to do with the Scriptures, but as they came to the Spirit that gave them forth.
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