Praxis+Theodicy wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 12:01 pm
Is anyone here attending KFW next month? Has anyone been before? Anyone want to meet up to talk about stuff there? My wife and o are planning to attend for the experience but also for networking, as we are looking for a conservative anabaptist church (not necessarily Mennonite) to settle into. Is this a good sub forum to discuss this?
KFW is probably the premier event of Charity type people, leaning towards the more conservative end of Charity. I’ve been there several years but I missed last year.
It started as a way for Charity youth to gather, back when the homeschool “patriarchy” culture was so strong that Charity wasn’t having regular youth gatherings / youth rallies etc. So some crafty youth organised KFW under the guise of a spiritual event they could convince their parents to attend and also lined up some guest speakers. It was a success and the youth enjoyed a way to finally get out and meet other Charity type youth from other places that weren’t their first cousins.
Over time, it evolved into an event that seekers felt welcome to come to, and which often entertained speakers from backgrounds ranging from a variety of Brethren to the Followers of the Way leadership. People who were drifting out of more plain groups into Charity would sometimes come and attend, but the leadership now is not trying to cater to such folk.
Over the years many people have stopped attending church and KFW is the only church type of event they go to all year. About half of the attendees would fit in this category. The leadership in my view is sensitive to the needs of such people and I appreciate their choices of speakers and topics, many of which emphasise the importance of church and local fellowship.
If you are attending or otherwise in Charity circles, this is a great event to attend.
Now for a bit of a personal story: my wife has never spent much time around Charity people or churches before, other than colleagues that frankly were on the worldly end of things so she just assumed they weren’t spiritual. We went to KFW once and she went to the ladies’ prayer circle.
She had two takeaways: one was that the women seemed to be trying to have lots of kids - she’s in her early 30s and women younger than she already had 7 or more. A few women expressed exhaustion with having so many kids and wanted prayer for that. They were also very surprised she only had 1 child at her age, as if nobody ever gets married as late as age 30.
The other surprise for her was she was unaccustomed to the evangelical style of praying long prayers in front of other people and going around in a circle where every person does so. The older Anabaptist style is to pray privately, other than prayers in a group at church as just one, or else short prayers before meals or family devotions. This reveals the evangelical influences of Charity people; their style is very similar to how my parents would pray on a group, given their charismatic background.
Nowadays you would find Keystone, BMA, Mid-Atlantic, German Baptist (New Conference), and the occasional intermediate-conservative sort of person attending as well.