Old Order Amish Splitting 4 Ways

[nett]

Hey Ernie,
Your synopsis is very good, and gives a very good overall picture.
The brotherhood group split off of the Fellowship group, this happened earlier this year or maybe last fall already. It is my understanding that the Brotherhood group is getting a lot of support and teaching from Barry Grant directly (he has been in PA preaching and baptizing at their meetings) and the Shelbyville group, not so much from Agape. Although obviously there may likely be some connections there.
From what I understand there are numerous groups or factions beyond those 4 that you mentioned. I forget all the names of all the groups I've heard of, but it is upwards of 7-10 groups in Lancaster County alone that I am aware of. Basically whenever a district or a group of people doesn't like the options, they just go and create their own brand or church.
Even the "daughter settlements" are doing the same thing. For example, the Lancaster Amish settlement in NY state has several factions represented there that are not officially a part of any of the factions in Lancaster County, likewise with Virginia, and other places I would assume.
From what I see it seems like all one big boiling pot right now, may the Lord use this to draw people closer to himself and may he bring peace in people's lives

How do you know this? If this is true, someone needs to have a talk with him. This has already been tried once, it was called the Charity movement, and Mose S. himself said it was a failure, and their founding idea turned out to be wrong.

[Samuel-Stoltzfus]

Hey Ernie,
Your synopsis is very good, and gives a very good overall picture.
The brotherhood group split off of the Fellowship group, this happened earlier this year or maybe last fall already. It is my understanding that the Brotherhood group is getting a lot of support and teaching from Barry Grant directly (he has been in PA preaching and baptizing at their meetings) and the Shelbyville group, not so much from Agape. Although obviously there may likely be some connections there.
From what I understand there are numerous groups or factions beyond those 4 that you mentioned. I forget all the names of all the groups I've heard of, but it is upwards of 7-10 groups in Lancaster County alone that I am aware of. Basically whenever a district or a group of people doesn't like the options, they just go and create their own brand or church.
Even the "daughter settlements" are doing the same thing. For example, the Lancaster Amish settlement in NY state has several factions represented there that are not officially a part of any of the factions in Lancaster County, likewise with Virginia, and other places I would assume.
From what I see it seems like all one big boiling pot right now, may the Lord use this to draw people closer to himself and may he bring peace in people's lives

How do you know this? If this is true, someone needs to have a talk with him. This has already been tried once, it was called the Charity movement, and Mose S. himself said it was a failure, and their founding idea turned out to be wrong.

Many people are talking about it, B. Grant has had many meetings in Lancaster County, and many people are inviting him to come speak. The Lord is using him to minister to many of these groups. I was just at a service a few weeks ago where he preached, and they had a baptism service at the Brotherhood group which he helped with.
How much of it is similar to the old charity movement remains to be seen I guess

[nett]

The Lord is using him to minister to many of these groups

How do you discern this? And how has the spirit been tested? The track record of these types of movements that "ministers" to OO Amish is quite poor. No one has ever explained to me why these spiritual revival movements that minister to the Amish always result in them being significantly more worldly, materialistic, and consumeristic than before.

Why do the OO need ministered to by car driving, smart phone carrying people? What do they have to gain from us?

[JayP]

It is sort of a shame that yes, movements like Charity tend to end up as failures. I say shame because while it was never my cup of tea, so many of those involved were sincere. I think it speaks to that aside from common beliefs or motives, a church really does need stability in its form and function to survive. A few (at one point) new ones make it, but so many spin off in different directions. It says something about people.

[Samuel-Stoltzfus]

The Lord is using him to minister to many of these groups

How do you discern this? And how has the spirit been tested? The track record of these types of movements that "ministers" to OO Amish is quite poor. No one has ever explained to me why these spiritual revival movements that minister to the Amish always result in them being significantly more worldly, materialistic, and consumeristic than before.

Why do the OO need ministered to by car driving, smart phone carrying people? What do they have to gain from us?

Those are great questions, if only we knew the answer As far as how I discern it: From my perspective, if people's lives are being transformed, such as being set free from drunkenness, sexual sins, depression, anger, and are loving their families and wanting to share about Jesus work in their lives, then that is a sign that God working among them. I think we would agree that God works through men to point people to Jesus, and if he uses men like Barry, then Its a positive thing in that regard. It would be great if many of these people can keep their simple Amish culture and continue to grow in their walk with the Lord, and that does happen sometimes, but as you already said, its not always that way. I do believe that a lot of these groups (Including this Brotherhood Group) are being careful about how they go about change so that they can keep many of the positive aspects of the culture. Also I believe that one reason some Amish people tend to drift so much is once they are out of the Amish church and being shunned, they really have nothing keeping them close to any of their culture unless they have been taught to make decisions to keep their culture. Maybe if a whole group is shifting en masse (Like the current situation) then they will be able to push against the current a bit more, time will tell.

[lmcdoss]

As I have said before I am very worried with where the OOA are right now. The smart phone so destroys what is their culture and lifestyle I am not sure it will survive in any significant numbers. I am not sure the Consevative Mennonites will do much better

From what I hear, the new Spencer, TN-type settlement and the Scottsville, TN-type Hoovers are feeling very comfortable with each other; this builds upon the comfort level the Scottsville group already feels with certain Swartzentrubers. Overall, a coalition is emerging that rejects smartphones, e-bikes, and making frequent use of drivers.

The 3 most conservative anabaptist groups are the Orthodox Mennonites, The Noah Hoover mennonites(reject all engines) and the Lower barton creek colony in Belize and its daughter colonies in belize and Mexico and affiliated colonies in bolivia. The 'ordnung' of noah hoovers and the Barton creek are basically the same, but the Barton creek is of Kleine Gemeinde and Old colony origin and therefore rejects any language in schools outside of Plautdietsch and High German.
On the smartphone the tradicional old colony mennonites(100k of them in bolivia) colonies all reject all types of phones but use tractors.