Perception of (Remote) Tech Workers as Seekers?

[Esdras]

One thing that is very important to our family is the notion of mutual aid. We see it plainly taught in the Gospels and in Acts 2 and Acts 4 of course, along with even 2 Corinthians 8 which speaks of sharing your abundance so that there is an equality and that no one lacks. In addition to giving to those who ask of us, our family doesn’t even feel quite right about charging Christian brothers and sisters anything for our services or charity or generosity; if we can help, we help. We try (and often fail, but nonetheless, a righteous man falls seven times and gets up eight) to not let our right hand know what our left hand is doing and trust that anything we part with for the Lord’s sake or the gospel’s will be akin to storing up treasure for ourselves in Heaven where our hearts are.

A challenge many seekers find who want to participate in mutual aid is that less-conservative churches don't really practice it anymore; they just rely on Social Security and Medicare for older people (meaning younger people can't be Social Security exempt anymore, despite the fact many of the older people often were when they were younger).

In more-conservative churches, a different challenge is presented: mutual aid is often restricted to members, so if one decides to rely on it before one is a member, you will have to trust the mercy of your congregation to be willing to help a non-members' needs. This might, however, be a positive spiritual experience for both the congregation and for the seekers.

Protestant Reformed Churches are very tidy and run much like a business in our limited experience and it has disheartened us greatly. Incorporating as a non-profit often incentivizes less charity in the United States as you can be accused of preferentially enriching private individuals as opposed to providing a public benefit. It is our understanding in our limited research that certain groups such as Freemasons (which we would never have anything to do with) as well as Anabaptist groups that have been providing for their own for 50+ years can legally exempt themselves from certain programs such as Social Security. To your point, this only makes sense if a community is willing to practice what the Apostle James regarded as a pure and undefiled religion, or what the Lord Jesus Christ simply regarded as being done unto Himself as it is done to “the least of these.”

To give an idea of how exempt churches work, they generally believe participating in any insurance at all is not to be done, sometimes even eschewing liability insurance for automobiles. (This is, obviously, a moot point for horse and buggy groups.) Every possible need is first met by the congregation, and then via letters/collections sent out to other congregations. Retirement is generally expected to be met by one's children plus savings accumulated in a farm or business.

If one joins such a church in their 40s and has no farm or business, it should be obvious you aren't really going to be able to accumulate enough to meaningfully benefit from this kind of system, although I maintain it is best to just trust the Lord, and that a good way to evaluate a congregation is how well it handles situations like these.

From an outsider’s perspective it is a little difficult to hear that Anabaptist communities struggle in this area, but during a very brief visit with the Bruderhof in Tennessee we also had the opportunity to observe some things that we totally didn’t expect.

The Bruderhof are different from most other Anabaptists since they practice a community of goods. They have some theological beliefs that would mean I couldn't really ever be a member there, and they don't seem to practice the headcovering anymore either, leaving it up to personal conviction.

During our very brief time there we were quite shocked by multiple attempts to subtly separate us from our children. For us, the family is a nuclear unit, and the man is the head of his household. But it seems that living in community in the way the Bruderhof do, there is more emphasis placed on the collective community, to include communal childrearing.

It was a very interesting experience, and I do not mean to come across as critical, we were just very struck by this experience and some other small things we noticed. When we had dinner with a family, for example, we were shocked that they did not say grace. They explained that because they lived the gospel out on a daily basis, these things were unnecessary.

We learned a lot, but we weren’t able to stay the night and really get a good sense of their community, as the children didn’t have lodging where we would be able to stay in the same room, they had curtains rather than doors, etc.

This created a situation, perhaps unintentionally, where there were adult strangers that would have been sleeping closer to our children than we were, had we stayed. One very nice lady (a grandmother) offered to have breakfast privately with one of our daughters, and the hosting family offered to let our children stay with them while we stayed in a separate house on the other side of the property.

All of this contributed to a great deal of unease from us as parents, partly because we both have parents that dealt with abuse and were at risk of trafficking. But also because that way of living is just very different from us.

[JohnH]

During our very brief time there we were quite shocked by multiple attempts to subtly separate us from our children. For us, the family is a nuclear unit, and the man is the head of his household. But it seems that living in community in the way the Bruderhof do, there is more emphasis placed on the collective community, to include communal childrearing.

I haven't spent much time with Bruderhof, but I did used to spend a lot of time with Hutterites. The children would generally be off doing their own thing whilst the adults gathered. You might think of them as the "opposite" of a typical homeschooling family.

It was a very interesting experience, and I do not mean to come across as critical, we were just very struck by this experience and some other small things we noticed. When we had dinner with a family, for example, we were shocked that they did not say grace. They explained that because they lived the gospel out on a daily basis, these things were unnecessary.

Well, Hutterites don't say a prayer at the start of a meal. They do say one at the end.

In Anabaptist communities in general, there is far less focus on the nuclear family. For example, if you randomly stop at an Amish home, as my wife's cousin used to do when she sold books door to door, there might be a gaggle of kids who could be some cousins plus some unrelated children from down the lane. They might even stay for supper.

Sometimes she would stop somewhere and there would be no parents home and the oldest child might be 10. This is considered normal.

By the time someone is 14, they often will go and stay with another family for perhaps a few months, such as when someone has a baby and so a 14 year old girl will go and help the new mom. Or perhaps they will go and get a job working for another family or business. 14 is basically viewed as nearly an adult and ready to take on adult responsibilities.

Children from first grade walk themselves to school each day and walk themselves home (or, as often is the case, go and find their friends to play with before coming home to do chores).

More conservative Anabaptist groups actually don't even allow homeschooling as it tends to have an individualistic mindset and due to a history of families that have tried it being unsuccessful. For example, my church doesn't allow it; they used to and almost every instance of it resulted in disaster in terms of the children eventually not joining the church, not being educated properly, or the family having major difficulties.

[Esdras]

During our very brief time there we were quite shocked by multiple attempts to subtly separate us from our children. For us, the family is a nuclear unit, and the man is the head of his household. But it seems that living in community in the way the Bruderhof do, there is more emphasis placed on the collective community, to include communal childrearing.

I haven't spent much time with Bruderhof, but I did used to spend a lot of time with Hutterites. The children would generally be off doing their own thing whilst the adults gathered. You might think of them as the "opposite" of a typical homeschooling family.

It was a very interesting experience, and I do not mean to come across as critical, we were just very struck by this experience and some other small things we noticed. When we had dinner with a family, for example, we were shocked that they did not say grace. They explained that because they lived the gospel out on a daily basis, these things were unnecessary.

Well, Hutterites don't say a prayer at the start of a meal. They do say one at the end.

In Anabaptist communities in general, there is far less focus on the nuclear family. For example, if you randomly stop at an Amish home, as my wife's cousin used to do when she sold books door to door, there might be a gaggle of kids who could be some cousins plus some unrelated children from down the lane. They might even stay for supper.

Sometimes she would stop somewhere and there would be no parents home and the oldest child might be 10. This is considered normal.

By the time someone is 14, they often will go and stay with another family for perhaps a few months, such as when someone has a baby and so a 14 year old girl will go and help the new mom. Or perhaps they will go and get a job working for another family or business. 14 is basically viewed as nearly an adult and ready to take on adult responsibilities.

Children from first grade walk themselves to school each day and walk themselves home (or, as often is the case, go and find their friends to play with before coming home to do chores).

More conservative Anabaptist groups actually don't even allow homeschooling as it tends to have an individualistic mindset and due to a history of families that have tried it being unsuccessful. For example, my church doesn't allow it; they used to and almost every instance of it resulted in disaster in terms of the children eventually not joining the church, not being educated properly, or the family having major difficulties.

Super insightful. Thank you for sharing this!

[Soloist]

Wife: your mileage will vary depending on Anabaptist group. Conservative Mennonites tend to use Church schools, but I would say the nuclear family unit would still be there, and they would not be comfortable with the hunterite model. some parents are more cautious of what their children are doing than others.
If you go to other Anabaptist groups, like what Ernie is in, some less conservative but still head covering Mennonites, and groups that came out of the the Charity movement (conservative end of that would be agape), they would actually have homeschooling be the norm.

If it helps any, one of the leaders at the agape group worked a tech job, and same with western Fellowshipand Pilgrim (conservative Mennonite groups that the ladies would wear cape dresses and capps, and men would often wear plain suits). So basically, not only were their members working tech jobs in just about every church we’ve attended, but several of them have been ordained ministry.

It really depends on what you’re doing in your job, and if there are any ethical dilemmas with that. There are church groups that have made and maintained filter systems for their members and marketed to a broader audience (including Jews and unaffiliated Christians), not to mention people who do tech support/website building for dental and medical facilities. Just stay away from nationwide unless you’re ready to switch jobs

[Neto]

This has been interesting reading. I am an 'outsider' in that I came from a much less strict or plain group of Mennonites, and am from a different Mennonite ethnic group. Perhaps the big difference is that I married in - my wife grew up in an Amish home until the age of 12, at which point her parents joined the Beachy Amish-Mennonites. But that was back in 1964, so any concept of or experience you have had with Beachy people would be very different than it was in the past, even when I came around here for the first visit, in 82. A few years after we married we moved to Brazil, where we lived as missionaries for 18 years. When we moved back I kinda' expected to be able to work in my father-in-law's construction business, where I had worked before we married, and then until we moved to South America. I was hired for temporary work a few times, but I suppose the comments here that it is sort of the 'nasty work' (like hanging bat insulation) were true. (Oh, I had worked in construction and carpentry previously, so I had a pretty good level of experience in that field already.) I later got a job working for one of my wife's cousins, at a steel factory (building farm equipment). I had also done farm work in my teens, but it was not a large farm operation, more of what I would call 'old world farming', but I had also worked as a farm hand at a university research farm. At the steel shop I usually worked on the powder coating line, and I had previously worked for a number of years in a related field, electrical plating. I could have helped them to improve their operations, but there was no respect toward my greater experience. Not that I had been in that field of work for an extremely long time, but I was trained by men who had been doing it for well over 20 years, at which point they, as employees, bought the company. The powder coating operation had been set up as if you just point the gun at the parts, and you'll do great. There was no compliance with some very basic safety regulations. (Like having an eye-wash station near the chemical area, and certainly not an emergency shower. In fact the only water faucet on that entire floor was the place where we connected a garden hose while washing out the tanks. That is the most likely time for someone to get chemicals in their eyes.) The proper personal equipment was not provided (such as a full-face mask, etc.) and no apparent feeling that more attention to operating detail would result in a better quality finish.

Then I eventually got into tech work - building 'word processors' - essentially locked-down computer built into a small cabinet that looked like no computer anyone else had ever built or seen. With the exception of two companies, all of my customers are either Old Order Amish, or very conservative Mennonites (as in black vehicle groups). There are also some very tech-savvy Amish people, and some are actually programmers (which I am not myself).