Churches, Dealerships, and Franchises

[Ernie]

There is something I have been mulling over now for a few years, and looks something like this...

What if churches would help hold each other accountable to whatever standards a church agrees on within the congregation, rather than holding every church accountable to the same standard? (within certain parameters of course)
(In the same way that youth with a curfew of 11PM, support and encourage youth with a curfew of 10PM to honor their parents and be home at 10PM.)

And what if Christian Orders would be established that individuals, families, and churches could join? These Orders would have a more disciplined/non-conformed practice, for those who want that sort of thing, but it wouldn't be expected at the church level.

This way the conservatives wouldn't feel all alone, if most of their church is not as conservative, and they would not be as likely to schism over conservative/progressive issues or principled/unprincipled living.

The Amish are doing this in Lancaster County from what I understand. There is something called "The Eagles", for those families who don't want their youth partying with the rumspringa Amish youth. The majority of some congregations are mostly a part of this "Order" while other congregations only have a few families who are part of this Order.
This happens organically in many Old Order and Ultra Conservative settings, in which parents encourage their children to spend more time around the principled youth, rather than unprincipled ones. They just don't have any organized name or way of going about it.

In Intermediate-cons and Moderate-cons settings, everyone is supposed to befriend everyone and there are not supposed to be any groupings within the church, which seems good at face value, but it seems to always result in the church drifting in the direction of the least common denominator.

In order for this hypothesis to work, church members as well as youth who have not yet joined the church, would need to learn how to respect and care about those who are less principled, and not look down their noses at others, even if they do not engage in the same sorts of activities at times.

It seems like we would need to develop a new view of church in order for this to work... a view based more on NT church concepts as compared to the dealership / franchise understanding.

[Josh]

It’s hard to imagine it working in principle. Could you imagine encouraging Holdemans not to share sermon recordings or listen to acapella gospel music recordings, or take photographs?

In reality many people from less conservative practice view anything more strict as absurd and almost make it their mission to “convert” them, and mock the more conservative practices. My experience is that absolutely every group does this. I have not found any exceptions (except maybe Swartzies, because they don’t have anyone to make fun of).

I also don’t see it working to try to compose a church / school of people with wildly varying practices. It seems such a congregation lacks unity at a fundamental level.

[Biblical Anabaptist]

LMC and W/F long ago negotiated some deal they wouldn’t intrude on each other’s “turf”.

I was not aware of this.
W/F congregations were originally under LMC until a new regional conference was formed as more people moved west.

As I understand it, since Eastern considered themselves the true successors of the LMC, they continued to respect this policy for decades, and W/F still does.

If this is true, it's hard for me to understand.
When Eastern started, they established a congregation right in the middle of W/F that was comprised of ex-W/F folks.
More recently, they took over a Nationwide church that was right in the middle of the W/F area.

The congregation that Eastern started "right in the middle of W/F" if it is the one that I am thinking of started some 8 years later than the one some 12-15 miles away. In fact the earlier congregation divided to start the one further south. The reasoning was that the 2nd congregation was in Christ Martins district which was the Franklin Co district. I know Washington Co was not happy that Eastern started that congregation for 2 reasons. 1 It was almost literally on the Washington Co bishop's doorstep being across the road from part of his farm. 2. Washington Co was also trying to purchase the building. I don't know what transpired but some thought there was some underhanded dealing on Eastern's part.

As to the Nationwide church, the members there appealed to Eastern for help. Eastern agreed but did not use the church building for 2 years because of the "gentleman's agreement " to not infringe on Washington Co.'s "territory". The congregation met in a public school building (if I am not mistaken) while the meeting house sat unused.

[Ernie]

It’s hard to imagine it working in principle. Could you imagine encouraging Holdemans not to share sermon recordings or listen to acapella gospel music recordings, or take photographs?

Sure. I do this sort of thing all the time.
With our employees, I try to learn what things their church prefers they do not do, and then rearrange the job descriptions accordingly.
Here in our church, I try to find out what parents want for their children and then avoid putting their children in an awkward position.
I'd say at the least, this should be expected Christian courtesy.
I also see it as an instruction from Jesus and Paul.

But like I said, what I am proposing will require a change of worldview and definition about church for many people.

[Ernie]

In reality many people from less conservative practice view anything more strict as absurd and almost make it their mission to “convert” them, and mock the more conservative practices. My experience is that absolutely every group does this. I have not found any exceptions (except maybe Swartzies, because they don’t have anyone to make fun of).

Yes, I see the same thing, and that is one of the reasons we have so many splinters.
I don't know that I ever heard a sermon on this topic. I'd like to encourage sermons about this.

[Ernie]

I also don’t see it working to try to compose a church / school of people with wildly varying practices. It seems such a congregation lacks unity at a fundamental level.

I don't know what you mean by wildly varying, but as I said earlier, there needs to be parameters of course.

I'd rather be in a church with considerably different practices, in which nearly everyone in the church respects each other, than in a church with very little difference in practice, but little respect for each other or and little respect for churches who draw the lines a bit differently.

[NedFlanders]

This thread is to discuss the pros and cons of Church dealerships and franchises.

A church starts a "dealership" whenever it sets up shop (church) in another region, while keeping its headquarters at the original location.

Churches become "franchises" whenever churches can join an official network with a headquarters, but the headquarters is an entity and not necessarily rooted at a particular original location.

I think the whole idea of national or international dealerships and franchises is very toxic to the Kingdom of Heaven, and I don't see many pros. But this is your chance to try to convince me otherwise.

Mennonites in America typically operated regionally and set up new conferences across the US as people moved and settled elsewhere.
John Oberholtzer, in 1860, was one of the first Mennonites (in recent Anabaptist history) to introduce the national dealership thing all over North America (General Conference Mennonite Church), stealing sheep from other conferences and setting up rival congregations in their backyard.
Daniel Kauffman and company were the first ones to attempt bringing all the Mennonite regional conferences under one federal government. (More of the franchise model) (which was something the Washington/Franklin conference would not consent to being part of.)
Eastern and Nationwide then followed Oberholtzer's footsteps, in setting up dealerships all over North America in other Mennonite church's back yards. Recently more conferences have started doing this, everything from Lancaster Conference to BMA to Mid-Atlantic to Pilgrim to Northeast.

The South Atlantic separation from South Eastern and now the Pilgrim Conference planning to separate into regional conferences seems like a good step to me. I wish that there was even more regional networking and less national networking. It doesn't make sense to me to have people flying back and forth over the US all year long in order to maintain the dealerships and franchise networks. It seems to me that this system is following the corporate model rather than the New Testament model.

This last part sounds backward from my experience where I live. Nationwide and even Eastern - the more conservative groups (although different in one being autonomous and the other being what you call a “franchise”) are the ones who have lead the way in branching out into new places. And then it has been Pilgrim coming behind setting up in their backyard stealing sheep… It is hard to have much respect for Pilgrim with how they do this but if the more conservative groups have done it also other places I can understand why people have negative feelings about them then. At the same time sometimes an entire congregation or close to it may desire to transfer out of a particular conference, fellowship, or whatever they maybe.
Does this change in Pilgrim mean they will stop setting up in other churches “backyard” as you call it?

[RZehr]

I also don’t see it working to try to compose a church / school of people with wildly varying practices. It seems such a congregation lacks unity at a fundamental level.

I don't know what you mean by wildly varying, but as I said earlier, there needs to be parameters of course.

I'd rather be in a church with considerably different practices, in which nearly everyone in the church respects each other, than in a church with very little difference in practice, but little respect for each other or and little respect for churches who draw the lines a bit differently.

Somehow I think this has been tried before.

[steve-in-kville]

I believe they already were in existence but got a boost from a ready constituency.

Maybe a BMA person can correct my history.

If I remember, KMF folks turns their noses up at BMA, for various reasons. But they were close with Mid-Atlantic, though.

According to the late Clayton Shenk, KMF was considering joining up with BMA, which was coming together nearly simultaneously. However, according to him, there was talk of New Covenant Mennonite, also from Lancaster joining BMA at that point, and some from KMF felt that if New Covenant joined BMA, KMF wouldn't be a good fit. Later of course, New Covenant never joined BMA (re wedding ring)...per Clayton. But KMF was already starting...

The conservative arm of New Covenant broke off just a bit later (shorts being a critical issue) and formed Cornerstone Mennonite Fellowship, which shortly thereafter joined the nascent BMA.

It's stuff like this that keeps my head spinning

And to say the Mennonites don't get involved in politics....

[Judas Maccabeus]

If I remember, KMF folks turns their noses up at BMA, for various reasons. But they were close with Mid-Atlantic, though.

According to the late Clayton Shenk, KMF was considering joining up with BMA, which was coming together nearly simultaneously. However, according to him, there was talk of New Covenant Mennonite, also from Lancaster joining BMA at that point, and some from KMF felt that if New Covenant joined BMA, KMF wouldn't be a good fit. Later of course, New Covenant never joined BMA (re wedding ring)...per Clayton. But KMF was already starting...

The conservative arm of New Covenant broke off just a bit later (shorts being a critical issue) and formed Cornerstone Mennonite Fellowship, which shortly thereafter joined the nascent BMA.

It's stuff like this that keeps my head spinning

And to say the Mennonites don't get involved in politics....

KMF would have been a poor fit with BMA because of their differences in church government structure, BMA being congregational and KMF being Bishop led. Mid Atlantic would have been easier, but there are issues there as well, some being leftover from the Eastern-LMC split that was less than amicable. There was a rather detailed talk given on the history of KMF given st one of our spring assemblies.