Ernie wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 8:50 pm
Josh wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 1:40 pmAnother question is why more new church plants aren't conducted as "missions" in America. The Holdemans did that with their church plant in NYC, which has had good success as a "mission".
I'm interested in this as well.
Tell us more about how Holdemans do stateside missions.
For some reason many conservative Anabaptists have a category for foreign missions/church plants and a separate category for North American mission/church plants. Models that are used outside of North America are not used in North America.
If laity decide to just move to a new place (at least 30 minutes, preferably at least an hour away from other congregations), then that follows a “colonisation” model similar to how other Mennonites do it. Once a few families are in an area, a church will get established. It is customer that ordained men not try to start up new churches in new locations, but after 1 or 2 other families are in an area, an ordained man and his family would be very welcome to move there. Tract routes don’t get established until the congregation is well established (unless a founding family is personally enthused about tract work).
If a church just gets too big (over 200 members, maybe less), then a division may get “forced”. A new building is established or rented church building close by, and half the congregation goes there. Usually the school will be shared until the new congregation can get its own school going. This is a last resort and is not preferred - the former model is preferred now.
We also have “missions”. NYC is one. There used to be one somewhere in Idaho but it is a regular congregation now. Same goes for Phoenix. A mission gets support from the mission board, has a missionary couple sent out, and is often paired with a Christian public service unit. NYC and Albuquerque are examples of this. Missions might conduct services in Spanish as there are many neighbourhoods in America where that is the primary language. (There is also one French congregation in Canada.) Holdeman philosophy is to always conduct services in whatever the dominant local language is. Usually, tract routes get established very early in such a mission church plant.
It seems to me that new church plants of the first variety would do well to be combined with domestic mission model of the third variety. I would prefer no more “plants” of the second variety. But you can’t control people and force them to move away.
Due to this model, Holdemans have the best geographic coverage of North America of any plain group, including both cities and more rural areas. There are few populated places left in North America that aren’t within an hour or two of a Holdeman congregation or mission, including cities like Sacramento, San Francisco*, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, NYC, DC, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Kansas City, Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis, Houston, Dallas, or Seattle.
Cities with “local” congregations or missions (inside the city itself as opposed to a rural area an hour or two away) include Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago, Toronto, Miami, NYC, Phoenix, and Houston.
I see no reason other plain groups could not follow this model, if they felt united enough and enthusiastic about supporting mission, alternative service, and tract work. In particular Las Vegas, NV and Utah cities seem to be places with a great need.
*Two hours without traffic…