Hats Off wrote:Mrs.Nisly wrote:One thing I wish people who want to join a Conservative Mennonite church would remember is that the very thing that attracts them to the church is the very thing that will make it difficult to fit in.
Conservative Mennonite churches are more than a "church". It is a cultural community. If you are attracted to the fact that they have resisted the societial culture of the modern world, you need to understand that they haven't merely resisted it, they have developed an alternate culture. This culture has been formed over generations of people. Genetically most of this culture shares the same ancestors. In each generation many people have left the culture and assimilated into the broader culture,but the ones who stay continue to shape the culture.
Even though you have come to value the same things this culture values, you have arrived there by resisting your culture. They value these things because they have embraced their culture.
The mentality that either of you approach your shared values can't be overstated.
The sentence underlined above are almost exactly the words one NMB couple expressed to us when they discontinued with us. They said that if we would change to accommodate them, we would be destroying the very thing that attracted them in the first place. The husband was in his second marriage so we hoped that they would continue coming without membership for themselves for the sake of their large family. Believe me, there was hurting when they left!
I don't think these differences are impossible to overcome, but just acknowledging them and working toward mutual understanding could maybe be a start.
Generally speaking, I think the more traditional a church is the harder it is, but not necessarily. I think it makes mutual understanding easier if people from the Conservative Mennonite culture have had significant exposure to "your" culture through higher education, or intentional missions and discipleship training and choose to come back to their traditional Mennonite church.
In a sense they are doing what you are doing, rejecting the "world" (their culture) in order to choose it intentionally.
There is significant risk for traditional churches to allow this. I suppose the track record is not very good that people come back and intentionally choose their conservative culture.
I think the best thing a NMB could do is think long and hard about why they wish to join a traditional Mennonite church like this. I think the best reason a NMB person could have for joining a traditional Mennonite church is for their children's sake.
Culture is first cultivated in the home, but very quickly it is cultivated in the context of a community. When a Christian culture and values are reflected in the community in which a child grows up, the culture is simply absorbed. If your child grows up and marries someone in the culture, your grandchildren will not know any difference. The genetic difference will just be a new variation of the Mennonite gene pool. This is nothing new. In my personal ancestry there are at least two or three NMB or more specifically, non-Amish gene additions. One as close as my great grand father. He was Lutheran and married an Amish girl. He was always "different" in the community where they lived. But I don't think anyone would ever dispute that his children, including my grandfather, was ever anything but Amish.
I think a good way to assimilate to a traditional Mennonite culture is to simply start building relationships with them. Start attending church. Visit them. If they allow your children to attend their school, then send your children. But make sure your children are dressed like the other children. This is the biggest difference children recognize. Don't pressure them to accept you. You could go a long time, years even, just living in the community, absorbing the community building a shared history. Who knows, maybe on a day when you least expect it, a conversation will come up about church membership. Are you sure you want to go to the next level of commitment? Maybe, maybe not.
This goes the other way too. My sister in law, who has lived nearly all of their married life in a non-Mennonite culture as missionaries, once told me that it's like she and her husband are the color yellow. They will always be yellow. The culture they live in is blue. It will always be blue. Their children are green. That was a few years ago then their children were younger and as of today, none of their children are plain, although the parents are technically plain. (Clothing is only one marker of culture, but an obvious one.)