Interested in learning about Holdemans

[Soloist]

Maybe for longstanding families who have been in the congregation for generations. How long would it take a seeker who recently joined an Amish community to reach the point that the congregation will pool together say $2 million to buy him a farm?

The same amount of time someone is born into an Amish community. Around 20 years?

What a ridiculous question.

the amish kid lived off his daddy for those 20 years.
who is the seeker supposed to live off of, while he is waiting his 20 years for someone to buy him his farm?

The seeker is supposed to be physically able bodied and work for an Amish farmer as a hired hand until they can buy a farm off of someone with a healthy loan.

You could just as easily ask the question the same way for a seeker going to Nationwide. What would they do? likely Nationwide also would ask them to leave their job, they may or may not have their own assets to live off of and the available jobs are very physically demanding with little to no upward mobility. Those higher spots are reserved for the son or the brother.
What exactly is expected by the seeker? Why exactly would the seeker get what the son gets? As pointed out, they have no family ties, people are suspicious they will just eventually leave like all the others and its very difficult to bridge that gap. Why would any seeker stay? Cost of following Jesus is still high but easier if the church is actually poor like you.

[Josh]

Maybe for longstanding families who have been in the congregation for generations. How long would it take a seeker who recently joined an Amish community to reach the point that the congregation will pool together say $2 million to buy him a farm?

The same amount of time someone is born into an Amish community. Around 20 years?

What a ridiculous question.

the amish kid lived off his daddy for those 20 years.
who is the seeker supposed to live off of, while he is waiting his 20 years for someone to buy him his farm?

Move to a cheaper place with other groups of Amish looking for cheaper land.

If you want to participate in the community banking system, you have to build a reputation first. Sorry. That’s just how life works.

It would be wise to spend those 20 years working for someone who knows what they’re doing to learn, as well. The main obstacle to farming is not land prices; the main obstacle is that most people wouldn’t be able to do it successfully at a profit, let alone using limited Amish techniques which make farming harder and impact easy profitability.

[Josh]

The same amount of time someone is born into an Amish community. Around 20 years?

What a ridiculous question.

the amish kid lived off his daddy for those 20 years.
who is the seeker supposed to live off of, while he is waiting his 20 years for someone to buy him his farm?

The seeker is supposed to be physically able bodied and work for an Amish farmer as a hired hand until they can buy a farm off of someone with a healthy loan.

You could just as easily ask the question the same way for a seeker going to Nationwide. What would they do? likely Nationwide also would ask them to leave their job, they may or may not have their own assets to live off of and the available jobs are very physically demanding with little to no upward mobility. Those higher spots are reserved for the son or the brother.
What exactly is expected by the seeker? Why exactly would the seeker get what the son gets? As pointed out, they have no family ties, people are suspicious they will just eventually leave like all the others and its very difficult to bridge that gap. Why would any seeker stay? Cost of following Jesus is still high but easier if the church is actually poor like you.

Instead of asking how I, as a seeker, should benefit from my community, I asked how I could benefit others.

So I set about finding good business partners and invested my own time and money and helped. It turns out lots of my fellow church members are poor, much poorer than I. They also need a helping hand but in turn they have a lot of valuable things to contribute.

If you really want to be treated “equally” - well - go join a Hutterite colony - you can get to work in the pig barns just like everyone else and won’t have to worry about money or status. Yet most seekers leave that lifestyle. Turns out many seekers indeed desire to be rich.

[Soloist]

Instead of asking how I, as a seeker, should benefit from my community, I asked how I could benefit others.

So I set about finding good business partners and invested my own time and money and helped. It turns out lots of my fellow church members are poor, much poorer than I. They also need a helping hand but in turn they have a lot of valuable things to contribute.

If you really want to be treated “equally” - well - go join a Hutterite colony - you can get to work in the pig barns just like everyone else and won’t have to worry about money or status. Yet most seekers leave that lifestyle. Turns out many seekers indeed desire to be rich.

I wanted to be part of the Hutterites, but I've been told they are not ready for outsiders and I've been told by the Hutterites that they don't let people join except at special colonies out east.

[Josh]

Instead of asking how I, as a seeker, should benefit from my community, I asked how I could benefit others.

So I set about finding good business partners and invested my own time and money and helped. It turns out lots of my fellow church members are poor, much poorer than I. They also need a helping hand but in turn they have a lot of valuable things to contribute.

If you really want to be treated “equally” - well - go join a Hutterite colony - you can get to work in the pig barns just like everyone else and won’t have to worry about money or status. Yet most seekers leave that lifestyle. Turns out many seekers indeed desire to be rich.

I wanted to be part of the Hutterites, but I've been told they are not ready for outsiders and I've been told by the Hutterites that they don't let people join except at special colonies out east.

The five or so evangelical colonies accept outsiders, except so far none of them have stayed, unless you count children of some seekers who married in.

Membership takes a long time now (years) but isn’t really a big deal.

[Soloist]

The five or so evangelical colonies accept outsiders, except so far none of them have stayed, unless you count children of some seekers who married in.

Membership takes a long time now (years) but isn’t really a big deal.

Are you talking about the colonies that got kicked out of the Hutterites? I found it funny that those colonies were where the Hutterites told me to go.

[Josh]

The five or so evangelical colonies accept outsiders, except so far none of them have stayed, unless you count children of some seekers who married in.

Membership takes a long time now (years) but isn’t really a big deal.

Are you talking about the colonies that got kicked out of the Hutterites? I found it funny that those colonies were where the Hutterites told me to go.

Well. They’re a fourth affiliation of Hutterites. Generally the different “Leuts” do not mix.

Most people could probably adapt to colony life - if they decided to learn Hutterisch and they also had a strong desire to basically live like a village peasant.

[Ken]

the amish kid lived off his daddy for those 20 years.
who is the seeker supposed to live off of, while he is waiting his 20 years for someone to buy him his farm?

The seeker is supposed to be physically able bodied and work for an Amish farmer as a hired hand until they can buy a farm off of someone with a healthy loan.

You could just as easily ask the question the same way for a seeker going to Nationwide. What would they do? likely Nationwide also would ask them to leave their job, they may or may not have their own assets to live off of and the available jobs are very physically demanding with little to no upward mobility. Those higher spots are reserved for the son or the brother.
What exactly is expected by the seeker? Why exactly would the seeker get what the son gets? As pointed out, they have no family ties, people are suspicious they will just eventually leave like all the others and its very difficult to bridge that gap. Why would any seeker stay? Cost of following Jesus is still high but easier if the church is actually poor like you.

Instead of asking how I, as a seeker, should benefit from my community, I asked how I could benefit others.

So I set about finding good business partners and invested my own time and money and helped. It turns out lots of my fellow church members are poor, much poorer than I. They also need a helping hand but in turn they have a lot of valuable things to contribute.

If you really want to be treated “equally” - well - go join a Hutterite colony - you can get to work in the pig barns just like everyone else and won’t have to worry about money or status. Yet most seekers leave that lifestyle. Turns out many seekers indeed desire to be rich.

You are missing my point.

It wasn’t that it is IMPOSSIBLE for someone to break into farming or some sort of plain-church related construction business or something like that. Clearly people do it.

My point was that some groups have a fairly constrained notion of what are acceptable professions and often those professions are capital intensive and take years to develop like say a cabinet or furniture shop that has built up a lot of expensive equipment, and business relationships. Sure, someone new coming in might be able to get a job working in the pig barns on an Amish farm a you put it, or might be able to find an entry-level job in some Amish or plain Anabaptist-owned business. But what you really end up with is a power and wealth inbalance between those with capital in the form of farms and businesses, and those without who are essentially cheap labor for the former.

That is made worse when a wide variety of higher-paying professional jobs are off limits or frowned upon. An 18 year old who decides to become a CPA or get a nursing or teaching or engineering or business degree might have a fairly smooth and easy path into a stable middle-class sort income. Not so if you are trying to build a farm from scratch, or start in an entry level laboring job for a company that you don’t own. I see it in my own family. It is one thing if you inherit a farm or farms from your family, or inherit a prosperous family business. It’s another thing entirely to try to build all of that from scratch.

That is one reason why my wife and I wouldn’t join a plain church. Or at least some of them. We would be uninterested in starting over in some limited selection of acceptable professions.

[Josh]

Aren’t you

(A) semi-retired

And (B) a teacher?

Amish and Mennonites and others can be either of these things.

[Ken]

Aren’t you

(A) semi-retired

And (B) a teacher?

Amish and Mennonites and others can be either of these things.

Mennonite is a huge and diverse term. I grew up Mennonite.

But how many Amish or old order type congregations would welcome a couple like myself with a husband who is a public school science teacher and a wife who is a doctor? Not many I would suspect.

In any event, this really isn’t about me. I made the point that, in my opinion, plain churches that have a fairly restrictive notion of acceptable professions can amplify wealth and power imbalances within the church as a result. Especially if those sorts of professions like farming and trades like cabinetry and furniture making can be difficult and capital intensive to break into as a owner rather than an employee. It is something I have seen in my own extended family.

You clearly disagree and that’s fine.