Why have the Anabaptists FAILED at Reaching the Masses

[Josh]

Most Anabaptist churches that start "outreach" churches hope that a family or two or three from a nearby city will want to join their church over the next 25 years. If not, it's disappointing, but it's not a big deal.

Sure. OK. But the population of just Texas is 30 million people. A family or two or three in 25 years is just making the OPs point. And note. I’m in no way criticizing this particular church. I’m just pointing out that it doesn’t represent Anabaptists expanding to the masses. And neither do other small rural churches that just happen to be within an hours drive of some larger city.

I don't think anyone's claimed plain Anabaptism is somehow going to take over America in the short term (although if present trends continue, a majority of America's population will be plain Anabaptist and Hasidic Jewish within my children's lifetime). However, Anabaptism has a very outsized influence considering just how small their numbers have been and how small they started.

[RZehr]

Your post kind of makes the point. Half of your examples are rural churches that just happen to be somewhat near major cities. Just to cite one example. You list the Beachy Amish church in Bastrop TX which is actually on a rural road outside of Bastrop. People in Austin are not going to drive 30 miles out of town to find a church on a rural country road that is mostly attended by local farm families. This is not an urban church and it isn’t an Austin church: https://gracemennonitefellowship.org/

Most Anabaptist churches that start "outreach" churches hope that a family or two or three from a nearby city will want to join their church over the next 25 years. If not, it's disappointing, but it's not a big deal.

Sure. OK. But the population of just Texas is 30 million people. A family or two or three in 25 years is just making the OPs point. And note. I’m in no way criticizing this particular church. I’m just pointing out that it doesn’t represent Anabaptists expanding to the masses. And neither do other small rural churches that just happen to be within an hours drive of some larger city.

Sounds like if Bastrop stays there, the masses will eventually surround them.

[Sudsy]

In our city, years ago in my youth, many people that attend churches lived in the city and many would walk to church. This was my case where our church was a 5 city block walk. Then sub divisions came to exist on the outskirts of the city making a walk to church longer and the inner city church did not have the parking areas to support people driving to church. When it was possible churches that had the income would try to buy up property next to the church for these parking lots. However, some of our downtown churches were never able to purchase lots and make them into parking lots.

As shopping malls came into existence on the edge of the city, people got used to parking close to these malls in the parking provided. It was not very popular to walk any distance for anything when you had a car and parking was close to most things. The churches I see closing in our city are ones were parking is very limited. And instead of tearing them down, they are often used to help street people in the inner city with soup kitchens and temporary living places.

So with most people driving to church, new churches were built with ample parking and on the outskirts of the city making walking more difficult. To get some inner city folk to these churches, some churches, such as our local Pentecostal church, purchase their own buses and pick up these people for church. But these buses don't run throughout the week so people with cars still need to pick up inner city people for the various church services carried out through the week. The local Pentecostal church is by far the biggest church in the city and I think some of this is due to the transportation they provide to get people to these meetings of sorts. People get to feel more as a family when they can meet and share throughout the week.

I am currently involved in a church that was built on a property someone donated to the church in a inner city area. It does have limited parking but it also is easy walking distance to a war time housing area. This church in the past has also had a church van and made multiple trips to pick up people that can't even walk a few blocks to church. I believe if we want to keep this church moving forward we will need to get back into door-to-door evangelism reaching all we can who are within easy access to walk to church. There is something special too with living close to other believers throughout the week amongst unbelievers. We need on-going encouragements by other Christians and being able to visit together and work together in good deeds with the unsaved toward them becoming Christians.

Anyway, in my last few years on this earth, if God doesn't take me home soon, I intend to participate in reaching those within a walking distance of this church. These folks are not wealthy and some have addictions that are killing them. But my parents were like that too until they were born again and began a life of serving the Lord and others.

[mrbilliam]

There are very few metro areas in America that don't have at least one plain Anabaptist church within a reasonable drive somewhere in the city, suburbs, or exurbs. Here are just a few examples:

- Cleveland: AC church within city limits (6 miles from centre of dowtown); multiple AC churches in western suburbs; large number of plain churches 1 hour drive south
- Columbus: small AC church; large plain community with multiple types of plain churches in Plain City, a suburb 35 minutes from downtown
- Sacramento: large Holdeman community 1 hour north of many suburbs
- Los Angeles: multiple AC churches throughout the city including at least 1 inside cit limits; Holdeman mission in Anaheim (suburb)
- NYC: multiple plain churches (Holdemans in Manhattan/Harlem; intermediate-conservative group in Bronx; BMA type of group in Brooklyn). All easily accessible by subway.
- Denver: Holdeman church in northern suburbs; I believe there are other plain groups as well; Charity type of church in Cheyenne; Holdeman mission and guest house located in the city
- Chicago: Holdeman mission right by the airport; multiple AC churches
- Miami: Holdeman mission
- Detroit: intermediate-conservative mission
- Philadelphia: small mission church; within 1 hour of multiple plain churches
- Phoenix: Holdeman churches
- Toronto: Holdeman mission; large plain community with many types of churches in eastern suburbs in the Kitchener/Waterloo area
- Minneapolis: AC church; Holdeman church an hour west (short drive from western suburbs) in Eau Claire; Hutterite community an hour south (short drive from southeastern suburbs)
- Baltimore: Keystone church within city limits
- Austin: Beachy church in Bastrop (Bastrop is essentially an Austin exurb suburb now)
- Dallas/Fort Worth: various church groups in the Dallas exurbs
- Louisville: Plain community 1 hour away in Indiana; Amish, Charity, Holdeman churches.
- Nashville: multiple communities in virtually every direction, such as Muddy Pond to the east about an hour
- Montréal: Holdeman mission; Holdeman church in Roxton Falls an hour away (both are French-language congregations)
- Winnipeg: Charity type of church and school located within city in a former madrassah

In short, the message that plain Anabaptists just won't locate within cities isn't true. There is a variety of such churches. In city life in America, it is also completely normal for people to drive an hour to church, school, shopping, sporting events, jobs, and so forth, and if we consider what is within an hour radius, there are even more options.

The list above is just what I know of. There are probably many more.

This is propaganda of sorts.

For instance NYC, whoopie 2 tiny churches to serve 20+ MILLION people.
Dallas/Fort Worth - NO churches.
Detroit: whoopie another 1 church.

This is not the topic of this thread - whether or not Anabaptists have their single digit churches in cities. The topic is why do the Baptists have 1000+ churches in many major cities yet the Anabaptists have None, 1 or 2. We failed.

[mrbilliam]

Most Anabaptist churches that start "outreach" churches hope that a family or two or three from a nearby city will want to join their church over the next 25 years. If not, it's disappointing, but it's not a big deal.

Sure. OK. But the population of just Texas is 30 million people. A family or two or three in 25 years is just making the OPs point. And note. I’m in no way criticizing this particular church. I’m just pointing out that it doesn’t represent Anabaptists expanding to the masses. And neither do other small rural churches that just happen to be within an hours drive of some larger city.

I don't think anyone's claimed plain Anabaptism is somehow going to take over America in the short term (although if present trends continue, a majority of America's population will be plain Anabaptist and Hasidic Jewish within my children's lifetime). However, Anabaptism has a very outsized influence considering just how small their numbers have been and how small they started.

IN the reformation, the Lutherans started off small too. Every major church starts off small. The Ananbaptists are roughly as old as the protestant reformation itself. Yet we exists mostly in cornfields and are pretty much populated not by converts - but by children we had.

[Josh]

This is propaganda of sorts.

For instance NYC, whoopie 2 tiny churches to serve 20+ MILLION people.

NYC has at least 5 churches that I know of. (Two AC, BMA, Holdeman, and Pilgrim). They are in 4 boroughs.

They are not having trouble serving the amount of people who wish to attend.

Dallas/Fort Worth - NO churches.

My list was not meant to be comprehensive, and there are churches in the DFW exurban metro area.

This is not the topic of this thread - whether or not Anabaptists have their single digit churches in cities. The topic is why do the Baptists have 1000+ churches in many major cities yet the Anabaptists have None, 1 or 2. We failed.

We haven't failed. Anabaptists simply set a high bar for discipleship and membership.

mrbilliam, I grew up in cities and have spent the majority of my life in them. I know how city and suburban people think, because in essence I am one.

Are you?

Statements like "oh no, 2 tiny churches to serve 20+ million people!" simply make no sense to a city person. All I would care about is "can I get to church from the subway?", the answer is yes, the Holdeman mission is right off the A train, the BMA church is right off the C train. In other cities the question is "well what's the drive like with traffic?" Many of the churches I listed in my list are ones I have actually attended, back when I worked and spent a lot of time in major cities.

[Josh]

IN the reformation, the Lutherans started off small too. Every major church starts off small. The Ananbaptists are roughly as old as the protestant reformation itself. Yet we exists mostly in cornfields and are pretty much populated not by converts - but by children we had.

In my local area, we have more Anabaptist churches than we do Lutheran churches, both in terms of attendance and number of church buildings.

The reason? Most the Lutheran churches have closed. The current membership looks like a nursing home.

As I stated earlier, out of attendance of 200 or so in my church, 50 of them are children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren of seekers. Are you unhappy with this number? What do you think it should be?

[mrbilliam]

I like to take one issue at a time as the formatting gets weird.

Let's start with this.

"Anabaptists have no problem with strong church growth outside of North America."

Yes. They go into countries like Liberia. They bring big rich American dollars. They start churches using the strong dollar value based on being able to feed people physical food. The Liberians flock to them because they first want $ and their money. Sure they can make some converts. I'm also not knocking the entirety of foreign missions. I would say nothing if we Anabaptists were all in USA CITIES AND foreign missions. But we just go to foreign missions. There is still elitism. There is still the cultural thing. Volunteers then "serve time on the mission field" and then often return home to "menno way".

USA cities though, you pretty much can't bribe people with food - thus a major attractive card is gone. Apologetically most Anabaptists don't even know their founders or their theology. They know the culture and rules of their own church. They can't hold their own apologetics either in most cases when talking with other Christian denominations. They fail at USA cities because they have no bribes to offer. They are too scared to allow the church to impact the world.....

Because safety only exists when those people look like us and follow the rules.

Interesting how Bible school only allows "church members" to attend isn't it? Keep the system going...

You mention Liberia. We served 4 years in Liberia, being involved in the church planting effort that was under the direction of the church in Lott, TX.

You are correct that initially, quite a few Liberians became members of the church because they saw an avenue to the humanitarian aid CAM was providing. By the time we arrived in Liberia (2004) it was already becoming obvious that this was the case. Over the course of the next few years we attempted to make it clear through teaching and practice that the church was not to be seen as an avenue to CAM and put things in place to identify who was coming for what purpose. With these things in place and with making it clear that the church planting effort in Liberia was an attempt to eventually have indigenous Anabaptist churches there, under Liberian leadership, church growth slowed significantly.

In coming back to America, we felt led to involve ourselves in a church planting effort here in America, using a model similar to what we use in foreign endeavors, which we did under the oversight of the leadership team in Lott, TX. After 13 years, I have concluded that CA church planting in America, with the goal of reaching common Americans not raised in Anabaptist circles is significantly more difficult than what we experienced in Belize and Liberia.

The prosperity in America and the many, many church choices people have in America makes the CA church model appear very restrictive to most people, so why would they choose that when other churches are less restrictive. In our church plant here in GA we have attempted to stick very closely to NT principles without imposing strict guidelines for everyone to follow and we have still not been able to attract many people. Now, if all the Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian and other churches in our region would teach all of the NT principles we hold to I believe we would have a much better success rate in reaching the local people than we have had.

One year at the annual Church Planters Forums we had some former International Church of Christ people there to share some of the ways they went about discipling people and planting churches. They had a very successful model and we wanted to learn from that model. After the ICoC sort of fell apart, some of them began embracing some of the biblical teachings CA's hold to and the question was asked of them - do you believe your discipleship and church planting model would have been as successful if you would have included what you now believe the NT teaches, and the answer was no.

I believe some of the ripest fields in America for CA church planting are ethnic groups that do not hold to a Western worldview.

This is where I disagree completely.

It's not the prosperity in America that keeps people from CA churches. It's the cultural inclusiveness and elitism. It's not the "extremism" as I said in my original post. Eastern Orthodox churches are very extreme and they have 330+MILLION members. They also have prosperity and their churches are all in cities in the USA.

What happens is CA churches are too busy picking each other's lives apart and being comfortable "living out their lives" in cornfields. While some churches seem to do better than others - based on our history, the Anabaptists have been pathetic on reaching the world with the gospel.

[Josh]

This is where I disagree completely.

It's not the prosperity in America that keeps people from CA churches. It's the cultural inclusiveness and elitism. It's not the "extremism" as I said in my original post. Eastern Orthodox churches are very extreme and they have 330+MILLION members. They also have prosperity and their churches are all in cities in the USA.

With respect, have you spent much time visiting any EO churches in America? They are almost entirely ethnic and they are in cities because Eastern Orthodox people from other countries migrated to America and settled in cities.

What happens is CA churches are too busy picking each other's lives apart and being comfortable "living out their lives" in cornfields. While some churches seem to do better than others - based on our history, the Anabaptists have been pathetic on reaching the world with the gospel.

Your frequent criticism of "cornfields" reminds me of another poster here, Chris, who constantly complained that Anabaptists set up churches in "cornfields". My local church isn't in a cornfield - the street it's on in is a residential area, and it has houses on either side of it plus across the street.

I don't think other churches are "doing better". I don't consider the church Luther founded to be one worth emulating or following.

Anyway, you've complained a ton about the problem. I've pointed out plenty of cities with Anabaptist churches in them, if you're interested. (Including Dallas, I just don't have personal experience with whatever is going on there. I am picking up an Anabaptist relative of mine from the airport who is currently at the airport awaiting her flight.) Ernie pointed out the Church Planters' Forum which is trying to address your concerns.

So what is your solution? I don't think the answer is for us all to become Eastern Orthodox or Lutheran or adopt even more of the "evangelical" formula.

And keep in mind you're talking to a citydweller here.

[mrbilliam]

This is propaganda of sorts.

For instance NYC, whoopie 2 tiny churches to serve 20+ MILLION people.

NYC has at least 5 churches that I know of. (Two AC, BMA, Holdeman, and Pilgrim). They are in 4 boroughs.

They are not having trouble serving the amount of people who wish to attend.

Dallas/Fort Worth - NO churches.

My list was not meant to be comprehensive, and there are churches in the DFW exurban metro area.

This is not the topic of this thread - whether or not Anabaptists have their single digit churches in cities. The topic is why do the Baptists have 1000+ churches in many major cities yet the Anabaptists have None, 1 or 2. We failed.

We haven't failed. Anabaptists simply set a high bar for discipleship and membership.

mrbilliam, I grew up in cities and have spent the majority of my life in them. I know how city and suburban people think, because in essence I am one.

Are you?

Statements like "oh no, 2 tiny churches to serve 20+ million people!" simply make no sense to a city person. All I would care about is "can I get to church from the subway?", the answer is yes, the Holdeman mission is right off the A train, the BMA church is right off the C train. In other cities the question is "well what's the drive like with traffic?" Many of the churches I listed in my list are ones I have actually attended, back when I worked and spent a lot of time in major cities.

Holdeman is a heretic church. They teach celestial flesh. That's a heresy and and old one.

By the way your "correction" only re-validates my point.

https://www.google.com/maps/search/bapt ... ?entry=ttu

Click that link. Move the map around. Be sure to refresh by hitting "search this area".

There are TONS of Baptist churches.

We are going to excuse 4 churches? Look what the Baptists did!

Now type in - Methodist church instead of Baptist church. Re-scroll again.

Do you see those numbers? Do you see those pins?

Let's get real about this issue instead of being like "Oh please accept this little teeny presence".

There are more Sikh temples, more Buddhists, and in FACT more witchcraft presence (wicca) than Anabaptists.