What drew you to Anabaptism or made you decide to stay?

[Ernie]

Or if you were raised in a Mennonite family, what convinced you to stay in the church (or return to it if you left)?

Up until age 36, I was Mennonite because that is how I was taught and raised. Even though I questioned how many churches were governed, and was disappointed in the lack of evangelistic outreach and effectiveness overall, I never questioned the theology.
Then I went through a major faith crisis and wondered how I could know if there was a God. One day while looking out the window of our cabin in the woods, I notice all the tree trunks and the intricate design of the bark. I concluded that this universe had to have had a designer. But who are what was the designer? For a while I considered studying world religions and philosophy as a way to answer this question, but then decided against it. After all, many people go on a search for God and end up with all sorts of conclusions. How would I know if what I settled on was the right conclusion? And what if I searched all my life and didn't conclude anything. I knew myself well enough to know that if I when on such a search, my goal would be to not leave one stone unturned.
I knew that I was very attracted to what Jesus taught and practiced, even if many people who named His name didn't resemble Him very much at all. I didn't know of anyone else in the world whose teaching and practice came anywhere close to that of Jesus. So I decided to continue giving my life to following Jesus, unless I became convinced along the way that some other worldview was much more plausible. I knew Anabaptists whose teachings and practices aligned with Jesus very well. So I decided to hang out with them as I had opportunity.
That was 15 years ago. No outworking of any belief system that I have come in contact with yet, has come anywhere close to competing with the life and message and the spirit of Jesus. I rarely doubt anymore whether what I am pursuing is the real thing that everyone should be pursuing. The older I get, the more flawed other systems of thought seem to be. And Jesus and his teachings seem to be more convincing than ever.
I'm Plain Anabaptist because I like being part of a big network. I have friends who are non-resistant and sold out for Jesus who are not Plain Anabaptist. But they are either part of churches that are losing the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles, or else they are part of small congregations that are one leader away from disintegrating.
I stay Plain Anabaptist because I want to be part of a Jesus movement that has a good likelihood of surviving for centuries. I don't want all my work and effort to fizzle out after I leave this earth, simply because I invested in something that was too small and too isolated.

If you had any tips for someone trying to live a Christian lifestyle based on a Mennonite interpretation, what advice would you give?

Here are some things I have written that may be helpful.
Overview of the Plain People and some tips for Seekers - The last couple pages include some advice for folks who looking to follow Jesus in a manner similar to Plain Anabaptists.
https://towardthebetter.org/wp-content/ ... e-2022.pdf

Overview of Values of the Plain People
https://towardthebetter.org/wp-content/ ... imilar.pdf

The Journey of Seekers
https://towardthebetter.org/wp-content/ ... eekers.pdf

Why Are there Few Non-ethnic people in Ethnic Anabaptist Churches
https://towardthebetter.org/wp-content/ ... urches.pdf

Feel free to ask questions.

And here is an audio-visual resource.
Why I follow Jesus in the manner of the Anabaptists by Wayne Chesley. Wayne used to be a member of this forum before he passed away.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px7PNYFg1uU

[Soloist]

I was fairly patriotic and not having any realistic job prospects and wanting to get married, the military was the "logical" choice. At the time my parents were paying for me to attend college so... if I had applied myself I could have easily got a degree in almost anything. I wasn't very disciplined though.

The military was in many ways what you might think, but in others it was not. The point that stuck out strongest to me was the profound hypocrisy of our nation decrying other countries for: Cluster munitions, anti-personnel land mines, nuclear proliferation, provocative posturing, Geneva convention violations and so on. We did and do all of these things on a regular basis. We have active land mines deployed around some of our bases, we have and use cluster munitions, I was taught to break the law in the military through what they called "preventive medicine" and told I'd be expected to break it further in the sandbox (Iraq/Afghanistan). The hypocrisy sickened me and led me to a realization that every country will present themselves as good and just and every country will claim the enemy is evil regardless of any action they actually are doing.
We pound the drums for interventions and then the common people generally end up with a worse state then before, we ignore some countries because it doesn't suit our interests, regardless of the evil happening.

To say I was disillusioned by the war machine after my time would be an understatement.

When my time came up to re-up I was asked if I wanted to and I was fairly blunt saying that I hated it. The LT at the time nodded and said that was fine, but shut up if I enlisted again because I knew at that point what it was. People trying to convince me would say "this is the worst base," yet they were the reason it was bad. If they said it was great elsewhere, how much worse would it be for me I figured.

This experience primed myself fairly strong for non-resistance, but it was the concept of how can you love your enemy and kill them that really convinced me. Otherwise, I would have been a pacifist. Dean Taylor's book was given to us at the third Mennonite church we visited after being told we weren't pacifists and were non-resistant. We were taken aback, not even realizing there was a difference.
By the end of the book, we were also non-resistant.

This comes from someone who would brace his door, have a loaded shotgun with birdshot, birdshot, then buckshot and would constantly try to work my wife into a defense mindset to protect our family.
Nothing could be further from the truth at this point. Someone breaks into my house, I know where they would go if they died... I don't want to send them there.


As for what led us to the Mennonites, I suppose it was the vision of culture, community. I wanted somewhere we could grow our faith with like minded individuals. When we read the Bible together, she thought of peace churches, I thought of head covering. The idea brought us first to look at Amish but there weren't any Amish there. Then first Mennonites we visited were fairly liberal. Woman pastor, no head coverings, no skirts/dresses, big posters to go stand between this army and that army, environmental stuff and other sort of eco friendly concepts. That wasn't what we were looking for and didn't know how to find it. Corry Anderson's website had us do some surveys, I don't remember how I found it, but he recommended an Apostolic church to us and we visited the parking lot.
I walked in, saw guys kissing and walked out.
Our next experience was the Quakers, we didn't know their views really, so it was just the peace church. I walked up to the door, saw them sitting in a circle just doing nothing and beat a retreat. I assumed they were a "wait for inspiration" group and my autistic son wouldn't be conducive for that.

We then went looking for crazy people at a farmer's market because I remembered arguing with people and remembered their stack of Bibles, the bread, the girls in dresses and of course the guy with the beard. (later I accidentally offended someone by telling this story, he was one of those sort of Baptist people)
I didn't find them, but I found a Mennonite selling bread, and she told us where her church was. We googled them, and they just had a facebook page, but there was a church nearby with a website and I spent an hour on the phone with there deacon and we had a splendid conversation about their theology.

Poor R7ehr's church (see above) was our first visit to Conservative Mennonites, or should I say... the parking lot. We arrived early, and no one was there. Finally, car after car started pulling in and old people in cape dresses, coverings and suits started heading in. My wife somewhat frantically said its not to late to try the other place (the bread seller's church) and we fled. Later, we found out young people rarely show up early.

Just like all seekers seem to, we have gone from church to church for almost always legitimate reasons. I still haven't found what I'm looking for, but I don't see anywhere else that has a closer view of truth without starting my own church. Message me for details if you are interested...yup, totally going to be great!

[Southerner]

I joined the Mennonites because my friends all joined and I was raised Mennonite. Frankly, I don't understand the Amish...understand the Hutterites more. An example of why I don't understand the Amish is I was recently at an Amish wedding and met a nice fellow from Michigan. He was a welder...asked him if he did all the welds...Tig, Mig. "No, our district only allows stick." I actually knew very little about the Anabaptists when I was baptized and I am now studying the Martyr's Mirror. I classify myself as a Mennonite, not an Anabaptist. Really, my roots are the Swiss Brethren. So I am a Swiss Brother.