Pros and Cons of living in heavily populated Mennonite/Amish areas vs. Not

Christian ethics and theology with an Anabaptist perspective
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Chris
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Pros and Cons of living in heavily populated Mennonite/Amish areas vs. Not

Post by Chris »

I'm curious what the general "feel" and "lifestyle" is like living in an area with a greater population of Mennonites/Amish. We live near enough to a single church, but when I see youtube videos of some tent meetings I'm rather blown away.

So what's it like? Millersburg, OH - Lancaster, PA - Shipshewana, IN?

Do you have a much better sense of community? Do many churches work together? Is there more fighting and sticking one's nose up if they are not conservative enough?

How about drop ins to visit? Surprise knock knocks, etc.

Generally I can describe a church on the outskirts as you have a close group but that's pretty much it. Sometimes there is a weary traveler cutting through... Some relative of somebody....

Of course I just want a raw description of what it is like... Not expecting it to be perfect by any means... Being a NMB convert, I'm curious.
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haithabu
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Re: Pros and Cons of living in heavily populated Mennonite/Amish areas vs. Not

Post by haithabu »

I spent the first five years of my life first in Markham-Pickering and then in New Dundee near Kitchener, which were in areas of Mennonite concentration. Since then, my parents deliberately chose to raise us away from that environment. Their concerns that we would be too sheltered. Also we had so many relatives in Markham that there were almost no marriage prospects in the Mennonite community there that us kids would not have been related to two or three times over!

They succeeded in the unsheltered bit, because I spent grades 1 and 2 attending an Indian day school where in one day I was both threatened with a knife by older boys and picked up by the hands and feet and swung over a fire. The first kids my siblings and I ever played with apart from each other were our Ojibway classmates. So a bit of MK syndrome there.

Then we lived for four years in a monocultural Scotch-Irish village in Southern Ontario where many still held the common WW2 view that Mennonites were crypto Nazis. I spent my first year in middle school being called "Nazi", "Kraut" and "Garbage" (a play on my surname).

But I think my parents made a good choice since all of us siblings seem to be relatively at ease with other cultures, which we may not have if we had stayed where we were. When I spent time teaching an adult class on a reserve many years later, it almost felt like coming home in a way.
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Hats Off
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Re: Pros and Cons of living in heavily populated Mennonite/Amish areas vs. Not

Post by Hats Off »

One of the pros: in Southern Ontario it is like having access to a huge smorgasbord of Anabaptist groups; from the plainest Swartzentruber Amish and Orthodox Mennonites to MC Canada and Mennonite Brethern. For a seeker, it could take a long time to find just the right flavour. The various horse and buggy groups all use German in their church services but there are varying degrees of accommodation for seekers. There is constant upward migration to less conservative groups - and occasionally also downward to more conservative groups.

Generally there is considerable co-operation between the groups - MDS and MCC count heavily on help from the more conservative groups both for volunteers for disaster relief work and for finances.

One of the cons would be that when outsiders observe the huge array of flavours, with all claiming the name Amish or Mennonite, they find difficulty in understanding the 50 Shades of Mennonites.
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Neto
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Re: Pros and Cons of living in heavily populated Mennonite/Amish areas vs. Not

Post by Neto »

from East Holmes County (Berlin - the cultural 'epicenter', as a non-Swiss Brethren background person): My feeling is that here, regarding another person who is outside your own 'class' of congregations or group, you will not know them at all, unless you are either related, or have a friendship or working relationship not related to church. Gatherings such as the (upcoming) Haiti Relief Sale are the exceptions, but again, unless you know the person from some other circumstance, you will just pass in the crowd. You may talk with strangers sitting near you in the lunch area, or during the auction, but lasting friendships are not generally formed there.

I grew up in a very small (Mennonite Brethren) community, and I don't know if the "visit w/o an invitation or a call" custom was just a mark of those times, or of that Oklahoma "Southern" culture, because we did the same with some of my Dad's friends from work, sometimes driving 30 miles or so, not knowing if that family would even be home. (Maybe they didn't have a telephone - I don't know. We didn't until I was 9, and it was not because of congregational guidelines.)

Our congregation was so small that there was only one guy in my grade in our youth group, and no girls at all. Other than this one guy, my best friends were from other church traditions, guys I went to public school with. (And he was not from Mennonite background at all.)
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Congregation: Gospel Haven Mennonite Fellowship, Benton, Ohio (Holmes Co.) a split from Beachy-Amish Mennonite.
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Valerie
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Re: Pros and Cons of living in heavily populated Mennonite/Amish areas vs. Not

Post by Valerie »

Neto wrote:from East Holmes County (Berlin - the cultural 'epicenter', as a non-Swiss Brethren background person): My feeling is that here, regarding another person who is outside your own 'class' of congregations or group, you will not know them at all, unless you are either related, or have a friendship or working relationship not related to church. Gatherings such as the (upcoming) Haiti Relief Sale are the exceptions, but again, unless you know the person from some other circumstance, you will just pass in the crowd. You may talk with strangers sitting near you in the lunch area, or during the auction, but lasting friendships are not generally formed there.

I grew up in a very small (Mennonite Brethren) community, and I don't know if the "visit w/o an invitation or a call" custom was just a mark of those times, or of that Oklahoma "Southern" culture, because we did the same with some of my Dad's friends from work, sometimes driving 30 miles or so, not knowing if that family would even be home. (Maybe they didn't have a telephone - I don't know. We didn't until I was 9, and it was not because of congregational guidelines.)

Our congregation was so small that there was only one guy in my grade in our youth group, and no girls at all. Other than this one guy, my best friends were from other church traditions, guys I went to public school with. (And he was not from Mennonite background at all.)
This is interesting- we visit Holmes County OH all the time- I recognize this situation everywhere we go- yet what I wondered is, because by 'outward appearance' it is obvious that all (except for MCUSA) are Anabaptist of one sect or another- then I would think that they would view each other, as "Christian"- by their outward dress, when passing by one another, even if they don't know one another. My former Amish friend, speaking for Amish at the time- conveyed that Amish tend to view 'Englishers' as 'the world' (not knowing whether these Englishers are professing Christians or not) I just didn't know how all these Anabaptists sects view 'each other'. We usually attend the auctions, Haiti and others- and note that they all work for each other at these events but I think that the disctinct variance in dress among the sects- it's hard for me not to see it as a stumbling block to those witnessing it- kind of what Hat's off was conveying. There may be an appearance of 'unity' within the sects, but 'disunity' among the Church at large by this
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RZehr
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Re: Pros and Cons of living in heavily populated Mennonite/Amish areas vs. Not

Post by RZehr »

Valerie wrote:We usually attend the auctions, Haiti and others- and note that they all work for each other at these events but I think that the disctinct variance in dress among the sects- it's hard for me not to see it as a stumbling block to those witnessing it- kind of what Hat's off was conveying. There may be an appearance of 'unity' within the sects, but 'disunity' among the Church at large by this
I believe that there is actually an underlying unity in spite of the appearance. We all have different practices but we set aside these things in times of disaster or deaths.
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Neto
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Re: Pros and Cons of living in heavily populated Mennonite/Amish areas vs. Not

Post by Neto »

RZehr wrote:
Valerie wrote:We usually attend the auctions, Haiti and others- and note that they all work for each other at these events but I think that the disctinct variance in dress among the sects- it's hard for me not to see it as a stumbling block to those witnessing it- kind of what Hat's off was conveying. There may be an appearance of 'unity' within the sects, but 'disunity' among the Church at large by this
I believe that there is actually an underlying unity in spite of the appearance. We all have different practices but we set aside these things in times of disaster or deaths.
Yes, I didn't intend to imply that the people here (from different groups) do not regard one another as Christians, or fellow believers, just that there is not a lot of spiritual or even social interaction on a daily basis. There is a lot more of this 'crossing over lines' in Sarasota, Florida (from my observations).
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Congregation: Gospel Haven Mennonite Fellowship, Benton, Ohio (Holmes Co.) a split from Beachy-Amish Mennonite.
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Hats Off
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Re: Pros and Cons of living in heavily populated Mennonite/Amish areas vs. Not

Post by Hats Off »

I was walking in Shipshewana one day and saw a different looking horse drawn wagon so I asked the driver about it. He in turn asked me where I am from and then the next question was "Do you know Lloyd?' and I did. Also in Shipshewana, I visited with an elderly Old Order Amish deacon and in the store I was asked where we are from. We all recognize each other as people of a similar background with very similar beliefs.

When driving in Southern Ontario, drivers of other vehicles or buggies wave because they see the hat in my vehicle.
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ken_sylvania
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Re: Pros and Cons of living in heavily populated Mennonite/Amish areas vs. Not

Post by ken_sylvania »

Hats Off wrote:I was walking in Shipshewana one day and saw a different looking horse drawn wagon so I asked the driver about it. He in turn asked me where I am from and then the next question was "Do you know Lloyd?' and I did. Also in Shipshewana, I visited with an elderly Old Order Amish deacon and in the store I was asked where we are from. We all recognize each other as people of a similar background with very similar beliefs.

When driving in Southern Ontario, drivers of other vehicles or buggies wave because they see the hat in my vehicle.
Same type of thing happens in PA.

In heavily populated areas, there are too many Mennonite/Amish to talk to everyone, so we tend to initiate conversation when a person (a) looks like [similar to, as in might be related] someone we know, or (b) looks like they might be from another congregation we fellowship with, etc. Its kind of a filter mechanism that keeps us from sensory overload. :)
In outlying areas, if we see another Plain Person in town, we're a lot more likely to go talk to them, find out why they are in the area, who they are, and so forth.
None of this has to do with divisions, discord, and not getting along. It's just that a person can't be "close" to 25,000 people.
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Valerie
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Re: Pros and Cons of living in heavily populated Mennonite/Amish areas vs. Not

Post by Valerie »

RZehr wrote:
Valerie wrote:We usually attend the auctions, Haiti and others- and note that they all work for each other at these events but I think that the disctinct variance in dress among the sects- it's hard for me not to see it as a stumbling block to those witnessing it- kind of what Hat's off was conveying. There may be an appearance of 'unity' within the sects, but 'disunity' among the Church at large by this
I believe that there is actually an underlying unity in spite of the appearance. We all have different practices but we set aside these things in times of disaster or deaths.
I wasn't sure if what I said (really, by being influenced by former Amish, some now being more Evangelical, or some that remained in the Anabaptist sects) was considered a pro or con or both- I have, at these events, tried to explain to those not familiar with Anabaptism- why the different outward appearances but it tends to be really perplexing- it was for me when I first started visiting Amish/Mennonite areas.

Then there's places like Shiloh OH which I really only saw Old Order Mennonite- (horse & buggy Mennonite) and there it seems not as perplexing because there's not so many different sects. That my seem a pro vs con- unless one is seeking Anabaptism and they are left with the choice in their area of horse & buggy only- churches- When we were seeking Anabaptism we didn't realize at first- if a church said Mennonite we assumed things we shouldn't have. Felt confusing.

Hat's off, we find a lot of Amish in their buggies wave at us as we pass them, which I find particularly nice-

The former Amish man I mentioned earlier, shared that he was sitting at a table one time at an auction- with other Anabaptists of one kind or another- and he asked "why can't we all get along like this on Sunday".
Naturally I draw most of my conclusions from what's been shared with me/us by those we've known-

I can see the pros and the cons by living in the larger areas. My former Amish friend calls it 'mixed up Christianity' however when I visit Holmes I find it incredibly peaceful, and enjoy being among those I know have faith- a few months ago on facebook I saw the 10 most charitable counties in OH- and Holmes was #1. I said, "why am i not surprised?"
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