Impediments to membership in an Anabaptist fellowship

[Judas Maccabeus]

Tonight I heard about 3 impediments from a seeker that really turned her off at first.

1. The constant discussion of relatives and connections. (Most seeker at the beginning know very few if any of the people being talked about.)
2. The fascination with death. Big deals are made about funerals and praying for the families of people who lost a loved one that even the Anabaptists hardly know.
3. Cape dresses can give a false security to some Anabaptists. And she thinks that such clothing should be a personal choice, not something you make rules about.

1. We don’t have the software installed to deal with that. Just try to make connections when you can. Some are surprised when you do make one. Happens in other churches as well, particularly if they are a smaller group.

2. You think that is sad? Almost no one turned up for my mother in law’s commital service. Did not even bother to have a service in her home town, where she lived for 60 years. Now THAT is sad. For my father in law’s some 9 years ago, about half of the people were from OUR church. Nothing is sadder than a funeral when no one comes, no one cares. Community support is everything.

3. Like it or not, most churches do have an expectation as to what you will wear, it varies , and is not written down, so you find out by trial and error. Almost always the choice is constrained by something. Just try showing up in the same dress the pastor’s wife is wearing, and see what it gets you.

[MaxPC]

What would keep me from considering some Anabaptist fellowships is their isolation and non-involvement with the world.

I seem to recall, perhaps incorrectly, that Ernie created a chart that showed the spectrum of various fellowships regarding their level of separation from the secular pursuits. Those groups who eschew all secular pursuits and practices were on one end and those who do not ban secular activities on the other with all manner of degree in-between.

https://churchplantersforum.org/wp-cont ... 3-2012.pdf

https://churchplantersforum.org/wp-cont ... e-2022.pdf

Thank you, Ernie. These are very helpful.

[justme]

2. You think that is sad? Almost no one turned up for my mother in law’s commital service. Did not even bother to have a service in her home town, where she lived for 60 years. Now THAT is sad. For my father in law’s some 9 years ago, about half of the people were from OUR church. Nothing is sadder than a funeral when no one comes, no one cares. Community support is everything.

i agree w you.
i always said the saddest deaths were the ones where we would need to go in and collect a decomposing body of an elderly person. i always imagined that they felt alone in life, as if nobody cared about them. and when they died, it was proven. no one cared.


don't get me wrong, there are other deaths that are harder, and more traumatic. we are just coming up on the 1 year anniversary of my nephew's death. and it is very difficult. it's been a long hard year. but they have had community support.

[Judas Maccabeus]

2. You think that is sad? Almost no one turned up for my mother in law’s commital service. Did not even bother to have a service in her home town, where she lived for 60 years. Now THAT is sad. For my father in law’s some 9 years ago, about half of the people were from OUR church. Nothing is sadder than a funeral when no one comes, no one cares. Community support is everything.

i agree w you.
i always said the saddest deaths were the ones where we would need to go in and collect a decomposing body of an elderly person. i always imagined that they felt alone in life, as if nobody cared about them. and when they died, it was proven. no one cared.


don't get me wrong, there are other deaths that are harder, and more traumatic. we are just coming up on the 1 year anniversary of my nephew's death. and it is very difficult. it's been a long hard year. but they have had community support.

Towards the end, it was just us, but virtually all of it was her own choice. She stopped going to her liberal presbyterian church, stopped playing bridge with her friends, many of which had died. Did not want to go out, "It's too hard." She had exactly one neighbor she talked to. My nurse wife kept trying, she went to the doctor, but was grossly noncompliant. Her church was anything but a community, especially after COVID interrupted things.

I conducted her committal service. Eight people there, four of them my family. It was the first one I conducted.