Missions impact on conservatism vs progressivism:
Judging from the cases like the recent severed relationship between a North African national church (in Ethiopia, I think) and the original sending Mennonite conference appear to indicate that it is often the most conservative people who are willing to leave their home country to do missionary work. (I say this because while the sending church slowly drifted off over the edge, the national church that was formed as a result of missionary efforts remained steadfastly conservative.)
Actually the stereo type for missionaries is that they are out of fashion, and just generally out of date. Maybe if someone is experiencing growing discontent with the direction their home congregation is headed, they should go to the mission field. Then when they return the home congregation will be so obviously different that it will be easy to find a more conservative one. (Speaking from experience here....)
Neto wrote: ↑Thu Jan 15, 2026 7:15 pm
Missions impact on conservatism vs progressivism:
Judging from the cases like the recent severed relationship between a North African national church (in Ethiopia, I think) and the original sending Mennonite conference appear to indicate that it is often the most conservative people who are willing to leave their home country to do missionary work. (I say this because while the sending church slowly drifted off over the edge, the national church that was formed as a result of missionary efforts remained steadfastly conservative.)
Actually the stereo type for missionaries is that they are out of fashion, and just generally out of date. Maybe if someone is experiencing growing discontent with the direction their home congregation is headed, they should go to the mission field. Then when they return the home congregation will be so obviously different that it will be easy to find a more conservative one. (Speaking from experience here....)
The book A Gentle Wind describes the exact opposite effect.
Neto wrote: ↑Thu Jan 15, 2026 7:15 pm
Missions impact on conservatism vs progressivism:
Judging from the cases like the recent severed relationship between a North African national church (in Ethiopia, I think) and the original sending Mennonite conference appear to indicate that it is often the most conservative people who are willing to leave their home country to do missionary work. (I say this because while the sending church slowly drifted off over the edge, the national church that was formed as a result of missionary efforts remained steadfastly conservative.)
Actually the stereo type for missionaries is that they are out of fashion, and just generally out of date. Maybe if someone is experiencing growing discontent with the direction their home congregation is headed, they should go to the mission field. Then when they return the home congregation will be so obviously different that it will be easy to find a more conservative one. (Speaking from experience here....)
The book A Gentle Wind describes the exact opposite effect.
Thanks. I'm not familiar with the book. Perhaps it all depends on the determination of the persons involved to hold fast to their standards (the ones serving as missionaries, I mean).
(In our case, we left a congregation that had become more liberal for a much more conservative one a bit over half way through the years we spent in full-time missionary work. But what we saw in the cases of a couple of other families who were conservative Mennonites is that the children didn't stay in the parents' congregation, or one that was equally conservative. But part of the reason we switched was for our children's sake. We were ourselves OK with 'standing alone', but since we were serving with a mission organization that wasn't of our own church affiliation, we thought it was important for our children to see that we as parents belonged someplace where we DIDN'T stand alone.)
The entire book is worth reading, but in short, missionary activity was what essentially transformed the Lancaster conference from a (somewhat) plain, fundamentalist church into a not-plain, mainstream evangelical church.
Whether this was good or bad is an open question. The book documents how it happened, but the cliff’s notes is that the missionaries who founded MKC in Ethiopia found themselves also transformed. It is notable MKC and LMC remain almost perfectly in lockstep to this day.
JohnH wrote: ↑Thu Jan 15, 2026 10:21 pm
The entire book is worth reading, but in short, missionary activity was what essentially transformed the Lancaster conference from a (somewhat) plain, fundamentalist church into a not-plain, mainstream evangelical church.
Whether this was good or bad is an open question. The book documents how it happened, but the cliff’s notes is that the missionaries who founded MKC in Ethiopia found themselves also transformed. It is notable MKC and LMC remain almost perfectly in lockstep to this day.
When I was with Eastern Mennonite Missions (the mission board of Lancaster) the higher-ups often looked to MKC and similar netwroks around the world - there's one in Indonesia and here in Honduras it's Amor Viviente and CCI - as models for the Lancaster Conference to strive towards. When I moved to La Ceiba, my supervisor really pushed me to join the local Amor Viviente congregation but I insisted on joining the Mennonite church just down the street.
From what I know of him, Don Jacobs, who was a fantastic missionary and fully committed to following Jesus - never was particularly conservative when it came to dress.
From what I know of him, Don Jacobs, who was a fantastic missionary and fully committed to following Jesus - never was particularly conservative when it came to dress.
Yes, I wouldn’t impugn the character of the characters in the book or the writers of the book.
It makes apparent that promoting specific aspects of plain dress is not enough to keep a people “plain”. There has to be something much deeper. Holdemans never adopted a plain identity, yet have remained plain and their missions and national churches are plain, although the clothing and covering styles are different.
One stark difference is that returning missionaries don’t sport the overseas covering style when they visit America. Other groups do this.
JohnH wrote: ↑Fri Jan 16, 2026 9:01 am
It makes apparent that promoting specific aspects of plain dress is not enough to keep a people “plain”. There has to be something much deeper. Holdemans never adopted a plain identity, yet have remained plain and their missions and national churches are plain, although the clothing and covering styles are different.
One stark difference is that returning missionaries don’t sport the overseas covering style when they visit America. Other groups do this.
What I would challenge with this is what you actually mean by plain. The Holdemen I know are not plain by clothing or lifestyle choices. If you mean by doctrine, it’s very easy to dismiss the changes that have crept in and the same sliding is with your group that’s with any group.
JohnH wrote: ↑Fri Jan 16, 2026 9:01 am
It makes apparent that promoting specific aspects of plain dress is not enough to keep a people “plain”. There has to be something much deeper. Holdemans never adopted a plain identity, yet have remained plain and their missions and national churches are plain, although the clothing and covering styles are different.
One stark difference is that returning missionaries don’t sport the overseas covering style when they visit America. Other groups do this.
What I would challenge with this is what you actually mean by plain. The Holdemen I know are not plain by clothing or lifestyle choices. If you mean by doctrine, it’s very easy to dismiss the changes that have crept in and the same sliding is with your group that’s with any group.
Holdemans are 100% a plain Anabaptist group by any reasonable definition. (So are Apostolic Christians.) They do not however generally do things that have stereotypically been part of either the Amish or of 1950s Lancaster Conference Mennonite practices of plain dress.
An example is we still avoid red cars for various reasons, young men who get a Corvette will be probably be required to sell it, wear black shoes to church on Sunday, women don’t dye their hair, sew their own clothes, and all manner of other expressions of plain Anabaptist.
Holdemans have trouble understanding why other plainly dressed Anabaptists nonetheless take lots of photos and videos and have photo albums and musical recordings and so on, particularly since the Amish groups they came from don’t those things, so to them they view the direction is becoming “less plain”.
Then when they return the home congregation will be so obviously different that it will be easy to find a more conservative one. (Speaking from experience here....)