I would also like to thank you for your comments here. (Because I could only 'like' it once.)appleman2006 wrote:It has been good for me to read this discussion and to actually have a chance to try and understand how it perhaps feels to be a new person coming into a group. I have experienced this in a small way at one time when I lived in a different area for almost a year but I kind of wrote what I experienced there as a quirk to that community. Now I am thinking this could actually be more common and may even at times be the experience of those that might be new comers in the churches I associate with.
…I would not want to be a part of a group where everyone did things exactly the same or where everyone looked exactly alike. Perhaps that shocks some of you but let me try to explain why.
From my experience when this has been attempted several things happen, perhaps not immediately but over a generation or two.
1. An attempt to do this causes an environment of divisiveness and splinters over the tiniest things. And the splits and divisions never stop. Rather they snowball and happen with ever increasing speed. No one who knows the history of the conservative movement within Mennonites can deny this.
2. As has been alluded to, leaders often are aware of differences of opinions but are reluctant to officially support change even when they know the majority might be in agreement of the change. They see it as potentially causing another split or they think that they will be viewed as the one that let down the standard in their watch. Our churches are littered with wrecks of leaders who have bravely tried to negotiate change and have suffered major personal grief and loss for doing so.
3. Too many fences can actually have the effect of lowering the degree of spirituality and holiness among a group. People start to rely on the fences to keep them and their children in check and with time they are doing the things not because they have any personal convictions about it but rather to fit in. And if enough of them decided that they actually fit in better by not following the letter of the law than guess what happens. This problem is magnified IMO in the last few years due to the fact that churches are finding it is almost impossible to build the fences high enough to keep those in that do not want to be kept in.
From my perspective I think groups that do a good job of keeping their rules and regulations up to date and that are very open about changes with the congregation ensuring the things that are being required are truly the will and conviction of the majority of the congregation will be much better off. But I recognize that in a culture that almost always views change as either being more legalistic or in the other case regressive and a sure sign of worldliness, that this is hard to do.
I am always amazed at how hard a line people will tow on issues, insisting that nothing changes when in fact they themselves are not in the same church that their parents or grandparents were in. If they are honest they will often have to admit that their own convictions have changed on some things over the years.
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I do think that the former outsider has a different feeling about the slackening of congregational guidelines simply because they did NOT grow up with it – they took the risk (sometimes the reality) that their new stance would stress or break the ties with their own family members, or close friends from their past. They came in (I’ll speak for myself – I came in) with the perception that the state of the congregation was more or less static, that the way it was then was the way it had been for a long time, and would continue to be for a long time. It’s kind of like the way people look back at what they call “the good old days” – it is usually the way it was when they were a child, or young adult. Childhood is such a short experience that it gains a sort of timelessness in our memories. It seems that the way it was when we were children is “the way it always was”, when it is really just one little snapshot of history, one frame in a fast moving film strip.
One more point, and then I’ll stop. Fellowshipping with other groups. As adults we can navigate this, but when you have small children, they need to see that Dad & Mom are not the only ones in their whole world that have the standards they do. We faced this on the mission field, working among a diverse group that did not include any other anabaptists, and in fact included Calvinists and other infant baptizers, and God & Country Evangelicals. (That is where the stuff really hit the fan – like other children playing war & killing.)
We do have one redeeming quality - we help provide stability to a church, which is often taken for granted. Look at the instability some new churches have.