Lancaster House Church Network

[cooper]

The “Dove” churches down here tend to the Pentecostal side. Don’t know if that is .universally true.

That's an important part of their DNA. There are a lot of charismatic churches that were formed in the 1990s by former Mennonites and Dove appears to be part of that movement. Around this time the MC-USA merger was happening and there was controversy over homosexuality and this issue along with a Charismatic approach were the stated reasons for these Mennonites leaving their former denominations. Several churches split off from the Mennonites in Franklin County in the early 200s.

[Josh]

Ironically, charismaticism would be welcome in modern denominations like Evana, Lancaster Conf., and so forth. (Probably RNoC too although I’ve never personally encountered it there.) Even within BMA some are pretty open to it like the group in L.A.

[HondurasKeiser]

The “Dove” churches down here tend to the Pentecostal side. Don’t know if that is .universally true.

That's an important part of their DNA. There are a lot of charismatic churches that were formed in the 1990s by former Mennonites and Dove appears to be part of that movement. Around this time the MC-USA merger was happening and there was controversy over homosexuality and this issue along with a Charismatic approach were the stated reasons for these Mennonites leaving their former denominations. Several churches split off from the Mennonites in Franklin County in the early 200s.

LMC seems to have lost a lot on both its conservative end and it’s charismatic end in the 1990’s. The other charismatic group that I recall leaving was the Harvest Fellowship of Churches led by (I think) a former LMC bishop, Henry Buckwalter. Another bishop, Enos Martin also left to form a more charismatic group but for the life of me I can’t remember which. In my home district, North Penn of the LMC, a few of the churches north of Williamsport left en masse to form their own group under the direction of Jason Denlinger and his son-in-law Mike Gaiotti, the later of which still leads that group. What’s curious to me is that, from what I know, a number of those “stealth Mennonite/Anabaptist Charismatics” are today nearly indistinguishable from your run-of-the-mill, non-denominational style church. To me it’s all very sad to look back on.

[Elmer]

Lancaster House Church Network is a group of 6 house churches in Lancaster County and has no connection to DOVE.
3 of them are expansions out of Steve Fishers original Fellowship. Most of the churches have a high percentage of ex-Amish, many of which have left in the past 4 years.

As far as Church Engaged, a few members were at that event but as far as I know the Church Engaged event only ever took place once.

The only connection to Kingdom Channels is Merle Weaver, who is one of the pastors at the Bowmansville Assembly (one of the churches part of the network) and he is also a board member of KC.
As far as the Lapp Bros, One Kingdom Community (the name and website associated with the Lapp Brothers Church) would technically be considered a part of the network but as Ernie already mentioned, it's not very formal.

The network (as far as all 6 churches) is fairly loosely connected, every 5th Sunday everyone gets together for church and occasionally the leadership meets together. Steve Fishers 4 churches would be a lot more connected.

I attend one of the churches and would gladly answer more questions if someone would like, feel free to PM me.

Am I understanding correctly that four churches are under Steve Fisher's leadership, but the Lapp Brothers and Bowmansville Assembly are affiliated but not under his leadership?

[ohio jones]

Believe it or not, there appear to be two Lancaster House Church Networks. It is unknown yet if there are switches or routers between them.

But wait, there's more!

The Lancaster Network of Microchurches recently joined the Rosedale Network of Churches (we may eventually be a network of networks). As far as I can tell, it's not one of the ones previously mentioned, but I don't know much about it otherwise.

[steve-in-kville]

I know Steve Fisher fairly well. He relates to the Lapp brothers but is not in a formal affiliation. Steve is starting a number of house churches of ex-Amish who relate to each other more regularly. I think I am saying this correctly that Steve views conservative Anabaptists as missing the mark just about as badly as conservative Evangelicals. He supports Penal Substitionary Atonement, etc.

Are these the "Glory Barn" Lapp brothers?

I think so. They would be the movement behind Blessings of Hope and its various splinter organizations.

[Samuel-Stoltzfus]

Lancaster House Church Network is a group of 6 house churches in Lancaster County and has no connection to DOVE.
3 of them are expansions out of Steve Fishers original Fellowship. Most of the churches have a high percentage of ex-Amish, many of which have left in the past 4 years.

As far as Church Engaged, a few members were at that event but as far as I know the Church Engaged event only ever took place once.

The only connection to Kingdom Channels is Merle Weaver, who is one of the pastors at the Bowmansville Assembly (one of the churches part of the network) and he is also a board member of KC.
As far as the Lapp Bros, One Kingdom Community (the name and website associated with the Lapp Brothers Church) would technically be considered a part of the network but as Ernie already mentioned, it's not very formal.

The network (as far as all 6 churches) is fairly loosely connected, every 5th Sunday everyone gets together for church and occasionally the leadership meets together. Steve Fishers 4 churches would be a lot more connected.

I attend one of the churches and would gladly answer more questions if someone would like, feel free to PM me.

Am I understanding correctly that four churches are under Steve Fisher's leadership, but the Lapp Brothers and Bowmansville Assembly are affiliated but not under his leadership?

Yes, That's a fair way to put it.

[Josh]

Surprising to see the Lapp brothers are still around. Have they “toned down” some of their more extreme theological positions?

[Samuel-Stoltzfus]

Surprising to see the Lapp brothers are still around. Have they “toned down” some of their more extreme theological positions?

I'm not really sure how to answer that, I would say that they haven't changed very much but I don't know then super well. To my limited knowledge they (Steve and Jake Lapp) are not nearly as involved in the leadership of One Kingdom Community (a name for their church) as some others (the main leader is their brother, Aaron Lapp Jr, and I would say he is more stable according to your definition compared to his brithers) since they are usually pretty involved in their ministry.
And as already mentioned, affiliation between them and Steve's group is very informal and minimal.

One clarification on my previous post:
Steve Fisher is an advisor to Kingdom Channels, that's one connection I failed to mention but I see someone else mentioned that already.

[mike]

Surprising to see the Lapp brothers are still around. Have they “toned down” some of their more extreme theological positions?

I'm not really sure how to answer that, I would say that they haven't changed very much but I don't know then super well. To my limited knowledge they (Steve and Jake Lapp) are not nearly as involved in the leadership of One Kingdom Community (a name for their church) as some others (the main leader is their brother, Aaron Lapp Jr, and I would say he is more stable according to your definition compared to his brithers) since they are usually pretty involved in their ministry.
And as already mentioned, affiliation between them and Steve's group is very informal and minimal.

One clarification on my previous post:
Steve Fisher is an advisor to Kingdom Channels, that's one connection I failed to mention but I see someone else mentioned that already.

What I remember of the Lapp brothers is the publicity over their tour to Israel a few years ago, apologizing to the Jews on behalf of the Amish for their lack of recognition of the Jews' plight during the Holocaust, or something of that nature. It appeared to reflect some really odd theology as well as understanding of history, in my opinion. That in addition to apparently speaking for the Amish and the Anabaptists as a whole really struck me as weird. At the time, it was in the mennodiscuss.com days, I think there was a tour participant on the forum which generated a lot of discussion back and forth.

In recent years, it appears the Lapp brothers have focused on their ministries such as Blessings of Hope, a massive sort of food bank which receives, stores, repackages, and processes rejected and surplus food and distributes it through a network of warehouses and trucks to other nonprofits which then distribute it for free to the public. It's an impressive operation requiring a lot of donor support and volunteer labor.