HISTORICALLY, as Friends conducted their business and drew up their minutes, they noted points where they were able to see clearly how to proceed. These records did not become inflexible rules, but were revised as needed. Guidance from within could always open Friends’ eyes to a new sense of direction. Over the years they created documents that served both as records and as guides. Such a document was often called a “Book of Discipline.”

The word “discipline” in this context has two meanings. The first relates to how one lives a religious or spiritual life by following one’s inner leadings and adhering to practices or teachings to which one is committed. It was in this sense of loyalty and commitment that Jesus’ followers were known as his Disciples.

The other meaning of the word “discipline” relates to the conduct of the affairs of the religious body, i.e., corporate rather than individual discipleship. Such discipline describes the system of order by which the religious body seeks to remain true to its principles, and to help its adherents remain true. It is a system of order chosen as a conscious alternative to the religious anarchy which can occur when impulse is the basis of decision and individuals or groups move on their own tangents without benefit of the discoveries and procedures that have been tested over time.

A Quaker book of discipline, also called Faith and Practice, reflects both of these meanings as it sets forth the attitudes and experiences of Friends as guideposts to be considered prayerfully and carefully, and the practices which Friends Meetings have tested and revised over the years. Each such book reflects the attitudes, the experiences, and the unique approach to Quakerism of a given body of Friends at a particular time and place.

Faith and Practice is an evolving document, reflecting the growing experience of Friends in North Pacific Yearly Meeting as we seek to know and follow the Inner Light. This second edition reflects change in the discipline of Marriage and Committed Relationships in our Yearly Meeting. Members and attenders are urged to study, use and evaluate the book in the spirit of the Inner Light. Suggested changes which arise from individuals or committees are to be forwarded to the Discipline Committee. After consideration, they are seasoned through the actions of Monthly and Quarterly Meetings and the Yearly Meeting. They may be incorporated in a future edition.

In 1656 the elders of the Meeting at Balby in Yorkshire, England, drafted a collection of advices to which they added a postscript:

Dearly beloved Friends, these things we do not lay upon you as a rule or form to walk by, but that all, with the measure of light which is pure and holy, may be fulfilled in the Spirit, not from the letter, for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.

Modern Friends still aspire to use Faith and Practice with this attitude in mind. In 1954 Jan Palen Rushmore spoke similarly, but in a different metaphor: “The teachings of our Quaker forefathers were intended to be landmarks, not campsites.”