Thanks Josh.Josh wrote:Wade,Wade wrote:I am also curious what "forsake all" means to Mennonites? Because of the "time of proving" this, from my experience does not (didn't) work for us today. So those who do forsake all are just left with nothing. And yet they have set there hand to the plow and aren't looking back because we are not looking for the praise of men, yet still alone... I guess why should us newcomers expect to be treated any different from our Lord in not being accepted by the religious community of the day?Hats Off wrote:At the time of the Amman/Reist disagreement, one of the sticking points was at how the Reist party looked at "friends." In those days there were many people who sympathized with and supported the Anabaptists but were not ready to "forsake all" and join them. They were known by the Reist people as the "True Hearted" and were truly friends. The Amman group considered them "lost" while the Reist group didn't.
Please consider that most churches not like the one that refused to accept you. Please stop acting like all Mennonites will act the way you were treated.
In particular, Holdemans are pretty welcoming and accepting and don’t have really long proving times, and are quite upfront and open about what the process is.
I don't intend to act like all Mennonites are a certain way. But I think it is fair for both sides to understand what is really meant by "forsaking all.". Why should we pack up and leave everything behind again unless we can be sure wthout some hard questions and conservations about it. It is easy to talk about forsaking all but until you have literally done that, I don't believe one can understand what that means?
The closest Mennonites that we have come to know since being away from that church have come in contact with the exact people that threatened us from the last one and then share conversations about with each other about us.
Then these new ones share untrue stories from the past church... We were told many times members are always believed over non-members! So we say nothing and my wife sinks further in wanting to avoid Mennonites.
But who really cares? My wife is hurrying to the hospital right now with our sick baby who is struggling to breath in our only vehicle that has a clunking noise in the front end. Learning continual to trust no one except God for help.