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Having a completely nonagrarian church community probably needs to be modeled a little differently than the traditional ways church and community are practiced. I do not know how that should look, but I think in theory it should be possible. Some people like Ernie probably have a better idea. But an...

Amongst the constituencies that have high birthrates (and thus end up being the majority of plain Anabaptists), farming is alive and well and indeed it seems to be what the vast majority of them do. I would expect the percentage to keep going up each year. As a reminder, groups like Scottsville-type...

Its pretty easy as a crop farmer to coast along at the age of 70+ and keep farming. Young people will farm if older people give them the opportunity. Many people leave the family farm, because they are in their 20s and dad is only in his 50s and they want to make actual financial decisions and can't...

Invest in other people. if you have money, go to other people you know that are borrowing money and give them a loan. it really does help a small bussiness or farm. Depending on the level of trust the loan might look different. It also makes a difference on the level of access the lender needs to hi...

I'm curious what approach you took for your talk, or is that still in the future? I just gave a basic biography of Dirk Philips and tried to show where he was coming from, and the role he played in the church. Everyone knows Menno Simons. Dirk Philips may have been almost as influential. According ...

His writings were really popular with the Amish, many bringing copies of his handbook when they emmigrated to America. Dirk wrote quite a bit about the ban and shunning and the right way to do it, which is probably why the Amish esteemed it like they did or do. Also somewhere I read that later when ...

Has anyone here actually read the writings of Dirk Philips? I've been asked to share about him in church service, just to see what we can learn from him. I find him to be a learned man, who really knew the scriptures. Every paragraph he wrote seems to have multiple Bible references. One thing I noti...

Thanks Ernie. I relly appreciate you taking the time to write and post this. Including the umconnected people around me is something i have been thinking a lot about lately.