Dear Friends,

As you know, we have already completed our work on the “Practice” section of the NPYM book of Faith and Practice. We distributed hard copies of it to monthly meetings and worship groups some time ago. It is available on the NPYM website and we encourage you to continue to use it for guidance in such things as new memberships or marriages. Let us know how they work for your group.

We have also prepared revisions to other parts of the book, including the Glossary, the History chapter, and the section on Friends Experiential Faith (formerly called "Friends Beliefs"). These have been posted on the NPYM website as well. In addition we have created a new appendix that shows the history of the formation of the monthly meetings in NPYM.

As for the “Faith” part of the book, we circulated Chapter 3, "Living in the Spirit" (describing Quaker spiritual disciplines) last year. We are now reviewing the comments and concerns you sent -- thank you for your responses!

Most significantly, we are joyful in announcing that the draft of Chapter 4, Fruits of the Spirit: Friends Testimonies, is ready for your review. This is the last chapter of Faith and Practice to come to you for response. It includes some expanded material around the testimonies of Integrity, Community, and Stewardship.This is a substantial and important chapter and we hope you will read and consider it carefully. We are attaching a copy here and it will also be posted on the NPYM website soon.

With the completion of Chapter 4, we are getting close to a full transitional draft of the revised Faith and Practice. To aid us in finishing this work, we ask that you review this chapter over the next two months and respond to us with your comments prior to NPYM Annual Session in July, if possible. We will be conducting an interest group session there on the chapter and your timely comments will help us shape that session. If it is not possible for your meeting to comment before Annual Session, we will accept comments about Chapter 4 until October 2, 2016. We have included questions to get your discussion started, but please don't feel limited to those! We value all feedback, especially from Friends groups that gather to review the draft material corporately.

Thank you,

The Committee on the Discipline
Linda Kocourek
Secretary
North Pacific Yearly Meeting