New York Yearly Meeting Records: Ministry and Counsel and its Predecessors

New York Yearly Meeting was set off from New England Yearly Meeting in 1695, with Flushing its only constituent monthly meeting. It first held business in 1696 and expanded throughout the 18th century.

The 1750s were an initial period of reform: the first written Discipline dates to 1755 and a Meeting for Sufferings (to handle the business of the Yearly Meeting when not in session) began to be held quarterly in 1758.

New York Yearly Meeting split into Hicksite and Orthodox branches during the 1828 sessions, following nearly twenty years of growing division among Friends in the United States. The Separation also led to nearly every constituent meeting also dividing and significant disputes related to funds, membership, and property.

From the Hicksite New York Yearly Meeting came the 1834 setting off of constituent meetings in Canada and Upper New York as Genesee Yearly Meeting. An additional schism occurred in 1846, sometimes called the Progressive Separation, with Congregational Quakers in Marlborough ultimately forming the Friends of Human Progress. The Hicksite Yearly Meeting was part of the establishment of Friends General Conference in 1900.

The Orthodox New York Yearly Meeting had several fractures: in 1847 several of its Quarterly Meetings divided following the Gurneyite/Wilburite schism in New England (forming the New York Yearly Meeting at Poplar Ridge), which later divided again into Otisite and Kingite factions. The Orthodox Yearly Meeting also set off its Canadian constituents as Canada Yearly Meeting in 1867. The Orthodox Yearly Meeting was part of the establishment of the Five Years Meeting (now Friends United Meeting) in 1902.

The two New York Yearly Meetings remained separate until their official reunification in 1955. But the Yearly Meetings began operating formal joint committees for various functions starting in 1904, and by 1943 the Joint Committee on Affiliated Service made a formal recommendation for reunion. The first joint annual sessions were held in 1947 (following separate business sessions for each) and its first united annual session in 1955. NYYM is affiliated both with Friends General Conference and Friends United Meeting.

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In 1978 Ministry and Counsel was reorganized and enlarged, the name of its Executive Committee changed to the Coordinating Committee on Ministry and Counsel, and the nme of its parent body to Yearly Meeting on Ministry and Counsel. At this time it had four constituent committees: Epistle, Faith and Practice, Human Relations, and Sufferings.

At Summer Sessions 2007, the Coordinating Committee for Ministry and Counsel (CCMC) was laid down and a Ministry Coordinating Committee was established. Four new committees were created at the same time -- Worship at YM Sesions, State of the Society, Ministry and Pastoral Care, Spiritual Nurture -- so that the MCC could function as a coordinating committee rather than as a committee of the whole.