New England Yearly Meeting of Friends
The Religious Society of Friends in New England

901 Pleasant Street, Worcester, MA 01602-1908 | voice: 508/754-6760 | fax: 508/754-9401
Office hours: 9:00 am - 5:00 pm, Tues - Fridays, Closed Mondays click to send email.

Click here for a list of useful NEYM email addresses.

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Click here to donate now to support NEYM Your donation helps strengthen Quaker community and Quaker witness throughout New England. Through youth and young adult programs, committee work, the annual Sessions, adult religious education and intervisitation programs, NEYM connects and supports meetings in our region.

Friends Camp Go to Friends Camp

Click the banner above to go to the NEYM Friends Camp website

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Yearly Meeting News and Events

7pm, Sunday, July 12, 2009 threshing session on proposal to incorporate the Moses Brown School

In order to prepare for our Annual Sessions, NEYM leadership and representatives from the Moses Brown School are inviting Friends to further thresh unresolved issues about the proposal to incorporate Moses Brown School. We will gather 7pm, Sunday July 12th at the Providence (RI) Meetinghouse. Linda Jenkins, NEYM presiding clerk, will facilitate our discernment.

The 2009 NEYM Annual Sessions website, including online registration, is now posted

Yearly Meeting Sessions 2009, August 1–6, 2009 at Bryant University, Smithfield, RI, is just around the corner and we invite all to the 349th gathering of NEYM. We have chosen as our theme "Living Into Jubilee," marking the beginning of a year-long time of Jubilee, culminating in Sessions 2010, NEYM’s 350th anniversary. . .

Presiding Clerk's Letter on agenda items for worshipful discernment at 2009 Summer Sessions

Dear Friends: This letter is to let you know about some of the items of business that will be brought before us, God willing, for our worshipful discernment at NEYM Annual Sessions. Please take these to your monthly and quarterly meetings, pray and talk about them. . .

Proposal to incorporate the Moses Brown School

Permanent Board will recommend to the annual Sessions that Moses Brown School be incorporated. The newly revised proposed draft by-laws, approved by Permanent Board on 5/9/2009, form the basis of the incorporation.

Proposal for a new NEYM organizational and staffing structure

At the 2008 New England Yearly Meeting Annual Sessions we heard an independent consultants' report on their findings about our current staffing structure and how the yearly meeting organization is run. They identified several issues, such as a lack of planning and accountability and the perception that NEYM has been less than an ideal employer. As a result, NEYM approved a "year of discernment" with a commitment to bring forward a recommendation for changes to the 2009 NEYM Annual Sessions. . .

The 1985 NEYM book of Faith and Practice is now (finally) posted online

The electronic version of our 1985 Faith and Practice, created in 2005 by a hard-working volunteer, finally makes it to our website. After a few weeks of being listed here as a "Yearly Meeting Event" you can now, and will continue to access the 1985 Faith and Practice under the "Committees and Other NEYM Links" in the index below. . .

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NEYM Office Sign
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The Quaker Message

George Fox, one of the early founders of the Society of Friends in seventeenth century England, had as a youth suffered great anguish as he sought an answer to his spiritual quest. His answer came, after much reading of the Scriptures and visits to many ministers and counselors, when he heard a voice within him which said: "There is One, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition." "And when I heard it," he later reported, "my heart did leap for joy." He had found God directly without the aid of ritual or clergy, and henceforth his distinctive message was: Christ speaks directly to each human heart who seeks Him; listen to the teacher within; He placed His light within each of us, and as we follow the way He directs we shall be led into life and Truth.

The first names for the new movement were Children of the Light and Friends of Truth. William Penn thought of it as "primitive Christianity revived."

Since those early beginnings, Friends have continued to hold that their faith is one of first-hand experience of God in their lives. Spiritual life, they say, does not depend upon the acceptance of certain doctrines, nor the observance of certain rites, but comes as persons are obedient to the light of Christ within them. They feel free to reject much of the ecclesiastical structure of the times, including priests, church dogmas, outward sacraments, and external authority in religion, because they feel that for them these do not serve the life of the spirit.

This has not been a solitary faith. From the beginning, the Quaker faith has flourished in a group, in a society, in a beloved fellowship. While God may be found in one's inmost life, one is always conscious of being part of a larger group of persons who are likewise joyously following the inward way and seeking to be obedient to the light of Christ within. They seek to be obedient not only in the quiet gathering for worship together, or in their meeting for settling practical affairs, but also as they are led as a group to be concerned for those about them, particularly those suffering injustices or inequities. While Friends had great respect for the individual person, the real unit in the Society of Friends has always been the Meeting.

Friends traditionally allow great freedom in describing their own religious life and experience. They have no formal creed. They try to weave their faith into life. Are they seriously trying to follow their inward guide? Does the Sermon on the Mount come alive for them as setting standards for Christian action? Are they endeavoring to live by Quaker testimonies of integrity, simplicity, equality, peace, and community? In other words, one can often tell Quakers not so much by what they say as by the way they live.

from Faith & Practice of New England Yearly Meeting, 1985, p. 53

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Staff

Administrative Secretary:
Katharine Lee Clark click to send mail.

Field Secretary:
Jonathan Vogel-Borne click to send email.

Christian Education Coordinator:
Beth Collea click to send email.

Young Friends/Young Adult Friends Coordinator:
Kimberly Allen click to send mail.

Accounts Manager:
Alison Hersey click to send mail.

NEYM Archivist:
Marnie Miller-Gutsell click to send mail.

Friends Camp Director:
Nat Shed click to send mail.

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The Meeting for Worship


The meeting for worship is the heart of every Friends' Meeting. It is based on faith that men and women can enter into direct communion with God.

In the excitement of their discovery that Christ was alive and had "come to teach His people Himself", early Friends gathered for worship fully expecting the Spirit to be present, and out of their hushed expectancy they entered into a fellowship with God that changed their lives. In the course of such worship came new revelations of Truth and a force that drove Friends out into the world to spread the news and to serve humanity.

Friends in New England try in their meetings for worship to capture the same spirit, a sense of God's presence in the midst, and to be open to new revelation. Some New England Friends gather in silent waiting upon God without designated leadership or program. Some are led in worship by a pastor whose function is to encourage and cultivate the ministry of each individual. In either case, for the meeting to be successful, all must share and respond.

Preparation for worship is essential. Preparation is a continual process of prayer, of reading the Bible and other religious literature, of learning from human experiences, and of daily practicing the presence of God. Some come on Sunday morning expecting to receive God's revelation with no previous effort on their part. For the cup to overflow on Sunday, however, it must be filled up all through the week. Early Friends came to worship with their cup overflowing, and it was then that the power was given to go out and to share the Truth that had come to them.

In the unprogrammed meeting, as the worship proceeds, out of communion with God a message may come to one of the worshipping individuals. Sometimes the message is purely personal; at other times it seems to belong to the meeting. The worshipper is then under divine compulsion to share it with fellow seekers, to contribute to the vocal service of the meeting, however haltingly.

In the meetings with pastoral leadership, the pastor may prepare a message and an order of service during the week, but the pastor is only a worshipper among worshippers, and the life of the pastoral worship depends on the response of the group. Ideally the prepared message arises not just from the pastor's own spiritual resources, but from the worship of the group.

Not all meetings, whether pastoral or based on silence, achieve a high level. Yet God does break through the crust of apathy, of worldly preoccupations or lack of preparation. We are humble learners in the school of Christ, and our weaknesses and failures should not deter us. When a meeting for worship gathers in active expectancy of God's presence with complete openness of heart and mind, the power to change lives will arise.

from Faith & Practice of New England Yearly Meeting, 1985, p. 95

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This page was last updated on Fifth Day, Seventh Month 2, 2009. It is maintained by webservant Dave Baxter; click to send email.