“Life is meant to be lived from a Center, a divine Center – a life of unhurried peace and power….. It is serene. It takes not time, but it occupies all our time.” (Thomas Kelly, A Testament of Devotion, p.116, 124.) “Simplicity does not mean drabness or narrowness but is essentially positive, being the capacity [...]
About Northern Yearly Meeting
2007 FLGBTQC Midwinter Gathering in North Carolina
Y’all come to the… 2007 FLGBTQC Midwinter Gathering in North Carolina! The planning committee for Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Concerns (FLGBTQC) is excited to announce its Midwinter 2007 Gathering has been scheduled for Friday, February 16, through Monday, February 19, 2007, at the beautiful Summit Retreat Center in Brown Summit, North [...]
Witness to God’s Love: A Minute of Northern Yearly Meeting
Witness to God’s Love: A Minute of Northern Yearly MeetingReligious Society of Friends (Quakers) May 29, 2006 Our experience confirms that all people are equal before God and equally loved by God. In witnessing the truth of God’s love to the wider community, we support full and equal inclusion of gays and lesbians in enjoying [...]
2006 NYM Epistle: A Journey in Faith, Hope, and Love
Greetings from Rosholt, Wisconsin and the thirty-first annual session of Northern Yearly Meeting, where our theme is “Moving towards a Blessed Community.” This is our largest meeting yet, with more than three hundred souls present, about 120 of them children and youth. Under the ministry of Friends from New York and El Salvador Yearly Meetings, [...]
Northern Yearly Meeting Structure and Function — APPROVED May, 2006
NORTHERN YEARLY MEETING RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION APPROVED MAY, 2006 “Recognizing the joy and celebration experienced each time we gather together for fellowship and as a worshiping community, individual Friends and Friends within several monthly meetings in the Wisconsin-Minnesota area announce the birth of a new entity within the Religious Society of [...]
Membership: APPROVED
MEMBERSHIP RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS (QUAKERS) NORTHERN YEARLY MEETING When we consider the criteria for membership, the two greatest factors are community and commitment. Not just a practical commitment, but a spiritual willingness to grow and learn, out of which practical commitment will evolve. (A group of Young English Friends, 1986 (BYM F&P 10.25)) DEFINITION [...]
Education: APPROVED
EDUCATION RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS (QUAKERS) NORTHERN YEARLY MEETING “It is not too much to say that the two most important duties of our Society are to publish truth as we understand it and to educate our children in our faith and life.” London Yearly Meeting, Friends Education Council, 1949 The belief that there is [...]
Preparing For Death: APPROVED
PREPARING FOR DEATH RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS (QUAKERS) NORTHERN YEARLY MEETING “Death, then, being the Way and Condition of life, we cannot love to live, if we cannot bear to die…Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still….” William Penn,1693 “God calls our loved ones, but [...]
A Brief History of Quakerism: APPROVED
Approved at Yearly Meeting Session 5/05 A Brief History of Quakerism The Religious Society of Friends arose in seventeenth-century England, at a time of religious and political turmoil. There was great dissatisfaction with the established Church of England, with its legal monopoly of public worship, oppressive tithes, and corruption. Dissenting groups, including Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, [...]
Meeting for Worship: APPROVED
MEETING FOR WORSHIP “…I found myself one of a small company of silent worshipers, who were content to sit down together without words, that each one might feel after and draw near to the divine Presence, unhindered at least, if not helped, by any human utterance. Utterance I knew was free, should the words be [...]
Faith of Friends of Northern Yearly Meeting: APPROVED
FAITH OF FRIENDS OF NORTHERN YEARLY MEETING Approved at Yearly Meeting session, May 2005 “We hope we shall never finish considering our fundamental beliefs…” –QUESTIONS & COUNSEL, Yearly Meeting of Aotearoa/New Zealand. 1991 “Friends find their essential unity in their profound and exhilarating belief in the pervasive presence of God and in the continuing responsibility [...]
The History Of Northern Yearly Meeting
Approved, under revision Early Migration of Friends to the Upper Midwest: Early movements of Friends away from the South and the Eastern Seaboard to the midwest in the mid-1800s established Quakerism in this region. Pioneer Friends moved into Illinois beginning in the 1830s, establishing rural meetings which had roots in Ohio and Indiana Yearly Meetings. [...]
