How could transitional Anabaptists stop being that way?

[Marylander]

After over a decade of being a seeker unfortunately this is exactly the type of congregation I’d be very much looking at avoiding and recommending other seekers to avoid as well. That transitional thing is too big of a deal for seekers to ignore.

A decade of seeking????? Wow. You've checked into horse and buggy? Many are not transitional. W-F conference isn't transitional. And neither are the Lehrleut Hutterites. Seek no farther!

Those groups don’t generally permit internet from what I heard.

Simply suggesting non-transitional groups.

[Ernie]

Ernie’s term of “transitional church” isn’t about a specific church changing, though.

Actually, I have thought of it three different ways...

1. People are passing through and onto another church
2. The second or third generation is leaving for other churches or changing the church to be something different than the grandparents.
3. The whole church is transitioning from something with more good values to something with less good values.

The confusing thing to me in my 20's and 30's was watching people become more "alive" and "greater connection with God", while at the same time they seemed to be losing many good values.

When I was considering leaving W/F for a Beachy church at 30 years old, I sought advice from a W/F bishop that I respected. He told me that when people switch cultures that are this drastic, a lot of unravelling takes place, and few people are able to re-ravel into something different within a lifetime. This has stuck with me ever since and I have made the comment multiple times the last decade that few people who transition from a more conservative church to a less conservative church end up offering their posterity something of greater value than what they were given by their heritage.

IMO, the only way to end up with more value is to have more disciplines and principles and sacrifice and deferring to others in his/her life than what one was given by his/her own heritage. If a family is part of a fellowship that also models this, there might be hope. Otherwise, the bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

[RZehr]

How could Mennonites stop being transitional? The Holdeman's, Horning, Charity, Pilgrim should stop setting up camp in Old Order communities or in the case of Pilgrim, an Old Mennonite community. When John and Frances Herr along with John Holdeman in Ohio left the Old Mennonite church, it sowed a lot of confusion among the Mennonites.

Holdemans aren’t transitional since they don’t easily accomodate people leaving. Your criticism of them “sourcing” from more plain groups is valid; however we don’t have the phenomenon of people continually leaving for a somewhat less plain group. (We could have a separate thread to discuss groups which intake from more plain churches but don’t have a corresponding outflow.)

In my opinion, this doesn't make the Holdemans completely exempt from being transitional. The distinction that the Holdeman people leave for non-Anabaptist churchs, vs. moderate conservatives making a layover on their way to the same non-Anabaptist church, seems to me to be a fairly trivial point to hold up the argument that the Holdemans are not "transitional". They are merely transitional with a unique aspect - an aspect that would be commonly found in other OTCs. I think if a group is taking in conservatives and then those same new people transition out of that group for a more liberal setting, that is the major point. Not whether there was 1 or 2 connections after they leave.

The point about making it difficult to leave is valid, and in my opinion would support the claim that the Holdemans may be less prone to this.

[RZehr]

Ernie’s term of “transitional church” isn’t about a specific church changing, though.

Actually, I have thought of it three different ways...

1. People are passing through and onto another church
2. The second or third generation is leaving for other churches or changing the church to be something different than the grandparents.
2. The whole church is transitioning from something with more good values to something with less good values.

The confusing thing to me in my 20's and 30's was watching people become more "alive" and "greater connection with God", while at the same time they seemed to be losing many good values.

When I was considering leaving W/F for a Beachy church at 30 years old, I sought advice from a W/F bishop that I respected. He told me that when people switch cultures that are this drastic, a lot of unravelling takes place, and few people are able to re-ravel into something different within a lifetime. This has stuck with me ever since and I have made the comment multiple times the last decade that few people who transition from a more conservative church to a less conservative church end up offering their posterity something of greater value than what they were given by their heritage.

IMO, the only way to end up with more value is to have more disciplines and principles and sacrifice and deferring to others in his/her life than what one was given by his/her own heritage. If a family is part of a fellowship that also models this, there might be hope. Otherwise, the bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

These three listed are important differences.

[Josh]

Ernie’s term of “transitional church” isn’t about a specific church changing, though.

Actually, I have thought of it three different ways...

1. People are passing through and onto another church
2. The second or third generation is leaving for other churches or changing the church to be something different than the grandparents.
2. The whole church is transitioning from something with more good values to something with less good values.

That makes sense. #1 and #2 are what I have been referring to by “transitional Anabap. churches”. #3 is something else and is a very broad category, because it happens to not just Anabaptists.

The confusing thing to me in my 20's and 30's was watching people become more "alive" and "greater connection with God", while at the same time they seemed to be losing many good values.

When I was considering leaving W/F for a Beachy church at 30 years old, I sought advice from a W/F bishop that I respected. He told me that when people switch cultures that are this drastic, a lot of unravelling takes place, and few people are able to re-ravel into something different within a lifetime. This has stuck with me ever since and I have made the comment multiple times the last decade that few people who transition from a more conservative church to a less conservative church end up offering their posterity something of greater value than what they were given by their heritage.

IMO, the only way to end up with more value is to have more disciplines and principles and sacrifice and deferring to others in his/her life than what one was given by his/her own heritage. If a family is part of a fellowship that also models this, there might be hope. Otherwise, the bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

This is really easy for a seeker family to do coming from a typical “megachurch” or weak evangelical church (which frankly is most of them these days, but not all). Simply go to any plain Anabaptist church and presto: we have stronger values than what we grew up with. My parents, for example, aren’t disappointed either my brother or myself are in plain churches, even though they choose not to attend church. They are pleased seeing certain Christian values lived out.

This is much harder for a plain Anabaptist family raised in a plain Anabaptist world to do. I do sympathise with those who feel their fellowship has become “unspiritual”. Interestingly, very few seekers leave their old church because it is unspiritual, but rather out of concern that the spiritual principles taught are not being consistently lived out.

[Ernie]

I corrected my three categories to show 1-3.

[Ernie]

This is a new booklet by John D. Martin that addresses the OP topic.

https://www.amazon.com/Be-Not-Plain-Ana ... 1680010360

[Marylander]

And guess what, Eastern is functioning just like the Holdeman's and Herrites in the 1800's and is pulling people in from the Old Colony Mennonites in Bolivia. It rhymes with history.

It’s rather different since the Kansas group had no functioning church nor leadership when John Holdeman visited them, which was a unique once-in-a-universe happenstance. Nowadays the Easterns function more like “missionaries”. (Modern day recruitment of Old Colonists by Holdemans woods be similar but almost never happens. Our churches in Mexico are mostly non-Anabaptist background people, oddly enough. There are a handful of Old Colonist people who moved to Kansas and joined our church much later.)

The ministers and other leaders all stayed in Russia/Ukraine which meant the sheep had no shepherd who came to America.

Aware of this difference which is why I said it rhymes.

[Marylander]

Nearly exactly 500 years ago it worked pretty well. Sattler, Grebel, Simons, et al articulated a compelling Anabaptist vision of discipleship and radically exalting and following Jesus' real teachings and example. They weren't afraid of education. They weren't judgmental. etc...

Modernity and higher education were entirely different back then.

I would be more open to plain people seeking higher education, but every single one of my plain friends who did that isn’t plain anymore, and some aren’t Christian at all. So we don’t have much in common anymore.

My brother has a Bachelor’s and my sister in law has a doctorate. Neither of them see any value in academia for the Christian anymore. My parents both sport Master’s and one was a college professor. I myself was enmeshed in academia for years and absolutely nothing there got me any closer to Christ.

The story of the Anabaptist movement is of people leaving the pride and high-mindedness of elite society and the academy and moving to a plain, simple, and modest life.

To be clear, I don't see education as necessary or sufficient for the Anabaptist vision. But I don't think we need to fear it...and a lack of good thinking can leave one open to, say, flat eartherism which a number of my formerly CA acquaintances have went for.

I agree with your view on education. Education is very important to me also. I am weary of the misinformation I hear among plain groups which I believe comes from a lack of education. Maybe it's a lack of critical thinking??? Pick up the PCBE and check out some of the remedies that are being pedaled. One of my Menno friends turned down a tetanus shot despite his doc's input.

It's also curious to me why plain dressing Mennonites are opposed to higher education but aren't opposed to mission work when the latter was equally detrimental to the Mennonite church.

And someone is no longer plain after they attended college??? What was their age when they attended? What were their goals? Did they have a community of support?

[cooper]

It's also curious to me why plain dressing Mennonites are opposed to higher education but aren't opposed to mission work when the latter was equally detrimental to the Mennonite church.

Conservative Anabaptism has a cultural heritage that is really valuable and has deep flaws. It's hard to have one without the other. The Achille's heel of conservative Anabaptism is that it can't withstand sustained contact with people in the outside world. Inviting insiders into the church is an essential part of Christianity. This puts conservative Anabaptists in a double bind.