31 Days: Closing Remarks

It has been a busy, busy day and my brain feels frazzled and unable to string together any coherant closing thoughts on "What Makes A Mennonite A Mennonite?" It's been a long, stretching month for me! I have learned a lot. Writing things out has always been the best way for me to untangle a subject and that has been what this month was all about. I'm thinking next time maybe I could just untangle the subject in my own personal notebook instead of on the internet :) But then I would miss out on your bits of input and that would be a loss and a shame!

To those of you who commented and sent me emails, etc with your thoughts and questions and input and encouragement - you helped make this month worth it!! Thank you so much. And to the man at my house who spent (literally) hours this month hashing this subject with me and proof reading my posts and giving me ideas and cheering me on...... I could not have done it without you!!

I know there is so much more that could be said. I know there are still unanswered questions and some of you that I haven't replied to yet. Quite frankly, I am rather sick of thinking about this subject now! :) Hopefully I have stirred your minds this month. I don't claim to have all the answers nor to have figured it all out but I do hope to have shaken us out of our comfortable little boxes a bit, and pushed us to do some honest thinking.

So, what makes a Mennonite a Mennonite? Well, hopefully it's more than just cape dresses and straight cut suits and those things on our heads! Hopefully it's about a deep, meaningful relationship with our Father. And, hopefully, out of that relationship flows a longing to be the kind of person who will someday stand before Him and hear the words, "Well done thou good and faithful servant...." And for me, right now being that kind of person means being a part of a Mennonite church!

God's blessings to you wherever you are called to be that kind of a person.

31 Days: An Interesting Exercise

In order to illustrate the difference between a list/rules mindset and a heart mindset, I think it would be fun to do a little exercise. I am calling this exercise: Choosing the Best Spouse.......

The first individual you have to consider is a very conscientious man. He never gets upset, angry, moody, grouchy or stressed out. He always remembers Birthdays and Anniversaries and buys roses and gifts for all the appropriate holidays. He is a hardworking man. He makes plenty of money and provides for his family's every possible need or want. He tithes religiously and gives his 10% to the church. He is the perfect gentleman - opening doors for the ladies, offering them his seat, helping the old man struggling up the church steps, speaking courteously and politely to all he meets. He washes the dishes for his wife every Sunday. He puts the children to bed at night while she rocks the baby. He makes certain to have Bible reading and prayer with his family every day. He helps at the soup kitchen, and is at every work project, disaster relief opportunity and church function he can possibly attend. In short, if you can think of an action that a "perfect" man does that I haven't mentioned, he does it. He checks every box on every to do list possible. By all appearances, he is the Perfect Man.

The next individual you have to consider is not quite so perfect. He *does* have a temper and can get very upset. It doesn't happen often, but when it does it can be very embarrasing. He is a conscientious man though, and tries to apologize and make things right to the best of his ability. He doesn't always give his wife roses on Valentine's day or presents for her birthday or anniversary. He isn't a big gift giver and mostly says "Happy Birthday" and "I Love You" as his way of remembering special occasions. He is a hardworking man and makes good money, but he has a soft spot in his heart for the unfortunate and so has given quite a bit of his money to help the needy people he meets along the way. His family is taken care of, but they never have the nicer or fancier things and their house is rather small and cramped. His bank account is not overflowing by any means and some people think he should learn to manage his money better. He is not a person who does well at lists. A set time for family devotions is not something he views as important. He tries to teach his family about God in their day to day activities, pointing out God's handiwork in nature or asking his children about the words of a song they just sang and discussing what it means. He spends a lot of time with his family. They do lots of things together. Little things, like going to the park or playing games together and big things, like Zoo Trips or a week spent camping in the summer. In short, if it's on a list, he probably hasn't checked it off. Generally he is so busy spending time with his wife and family he doesn't have time to worry much about lists.

Sadly for both of these men, their wives have died and they are left alone with a family and no mother. By some odd coincidence, they both have asked you to be their wife. Which one would you choose?

31 Days: Input From You

I thought I might share a few tid bits from some emails/texts I have gotten from some of you readers. I didn't ask all of you for specific permission to quote you, but I will do so discreetly and anonymously. I have enjoyed the interaction with you readers tremendously! Thank you ever so much for sharing your input, I would love to hear from more of you. I have picked out a few pieces here and there of things that were helpful to me or of particular interest...

"Too many Mennonites play the comparison game.... "If she can do it and be a Christian, than so can I!" Wait a minute!!! This is a horrible question and thought process! We don't evaluate our standards against other Christian believers! We compare ourselves to the heart of Jesus and how He asks us to live!"

"Every concerned family (or organization) has guidelines/rules that they go off of. The children need to obey whether they understand them or not. That's not saying they can't learn why someday when they're old enough to get an in depth answer. I guess I don't think we need to have a big or bad reason for every guideline."

On changing to cape dresses --
"I could see the point of cape dresses - and even quickly learned to appreciate them and how they did help keep my heart away from endless shopping at the mall and slowly sliding my standards of modesty."

"You keep mentioning being different. I'm wondering if that's a bigger deal in your mind than it is in other people's minds? In our church there is a lot of variety, in my opinion that means we are *all* different. We all are the odd ball in some way.... The older I get the more I see we draw lines at different places. One family may draw a conservative line on dress, another family may...draw a strict line on curfew or internet use or being on time and showing up every time the church doors open. Is one better [holier] than the other? I think not. While it would be easier to raise a family in an environment where we all have the same dress code and curfew, etc that's just not life. We all have areas where we draw a line more conservative than our peers making us/our children the odd balls. But I am also learning sometimes those more conservative lines are not always readily apparent. We just won't all have the same convictions. And I have no business judging others because I think my lines are more righteous."

"My problem with Mennonites is I see and hear so much focus on light (i.e. calling uniformity unity) and the Life seems so secondary. Like the specific "light" of doing things one way proves that you have Life. I guess I don't understand why you're choosing to stay where (I think) the focus is so external."

"Maybe those who want rules have valid, workable reasons. Who said rules don't work? I mean who determines that they have/or haven't, do/don't work? I have to think of those who don't have rules...how well are they passing along values, etc? ... How can it be that someone from the world becomes convicted that they need to dress modestly and start to dress in skirts and wear a headcovering because they feel convicted about it, while we start down the path of looking more like they used to and do the things they wouldn't feel comfortable doing anymore?"

As you see, it's been an interesting month! :)

31 Days: In Summary

We have established that what is in the heart is what is important, but what should be in the heart? I think, if we are honest, we would all consider ourselves to be basically good people. Even the murderer would probably consider himself to be a basically good person. The Bible says the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, so it would seem that we need something outside of ourselves to evaluate our own hearts.

This, I think, is where the 'law' comes in. The law is meant to show us where our hearts are wrong. We read that we are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves and we say, "Hmmm...... I don't really love my neighbor that way, there must be something wrong with my heart!" The law is meant to show us our sin and point us to Christ, but that is all. The law does not *keep* us in Him; does not *prevent* us from leaving Him, it only turns us in the right direction. Once we have found Him and He has changed our heart, the law kills the Spirit.

We *are* instructed to be DOERS of the Word not just hearers, so we know there is action required. I think we have tried to make people be DOERS by making rules to ensure that they DO. Instead of encouraging and promoting and teaching changed hearts, we have focused more on making sure everyone is DOING - or at least making sure it *looks* like everyone is DOING. I know this is almost heresy in our Beachy Mennonite circles, but I don't believe unity and uniformity are necessarily one and the same. I don't think God intended them to be one and the same. We have adopted the idea that they should be one and the same and the only way to accomplish that has been to ensure that everyone is DOING the same thing by setting out a list of specifics.

This, then, is really the conflict between the "Heart" and the "Rules" people: It is not *whether* there should be any rules, but WHO MAKES THE RULES.

What the "Heart" people are saying, is that God has already made the rules! He has already set down what is right and wrong. He has said "Be modest", "Don't steal", "Love your neighbor", "Be kind", "Think on these things"...... The "Rules" people seem to think they need to 'help God out'. It's not enough to let people obey God's rules - they might not all interpret them the same way! If God says "Be Modest", we need to define it. If God says "Don't steal", we need to define it. And by being so intent on defining everything, we miss the Spirit of the Law entirely!

As churches, we do need to hold up what God has said is right and wrong/good and evil. The problem is, we have become so focused on specifics that it is almost impossible for us to allow people to live out their Christianity in the broad measures of what God says is right and wrong. The "Heart" people's tendency then, is to be so general in their call to right living that almost anything seems to qualify as right living. The bottom line is this: We are called to be doers; changed hearts produce changed actions. Changed hearts produce people who's deepest desire is to know what God says is right and wrong and, in turn, do it. There may be some place for restrictions that are not *Saving* but are cause and effect 'saving'....as long as they are clearly marked as such! Let us not teach as Gospel and Truth what the Bible does not spell out as Truth. And, while we do need to decide what modesty (or any other Biblical principle) looks like in our own church or personal life, let's focus on calling people to Holiness - to what God says is right and wrong (modesty vs immodesty) and stop focusing on our own personal/church's application.

31 Days: Where should our focus be?

It is so, SO easy for the Christian life to become about following a certain "formula" to make us Holy. Without even realizing it, we think that if we follow God than our lives will look like A B C. But that's not really the way it's supposed to work! There is no one perscribed way to please Him - if you drive a car with a black bumper it means nothing; if you wear black shoes Sunday morning it means nothing (what is it with black anyway?); if you always wear button up shirts it means nothing; if you choose to wear a cape dress it means nothing.

Christianity is about the relationship, not the actions. The actions are the result of the relationship, and just like my marriage doesn't look like everyone else's, neither does my relationship with God. Instead of focusing on "How are they doing it?" and "If it's ok for them it's ok for me" or "They can't be right if they're not doing it the same way as me", we have got to come back to our own personal relationship with the Father. And a personal relationship with the Father is all about the asking, the rapport, the we-want-to-follow-YOU-not-some-idea-we-swallowed.

I've heard it put this way: We fellowship around the Life that we have, not the Light that we have. The Life is our Lord Jesus. The Light is what He is showing us in our own lives. He is not showing us all the same things at the same time. If we try to fellowship around the Light, we will all quickly become frustrated with one another and go our separate ways. If we fellowship around the Life that we share, we can rejoice and encourage each other.

31 Days: Why the Focus on Clothes?

As Mennonites, we seem to spend a lot of time focusing on clothes. If we really want to call people to Holiness, it involves so much more than just the way we dress. Why don't we focus on how our houses look? Our businesses? Our possessions? The vehicles we drive? Seems to me God talks a lot more about riches in the New Testament than He does about clothes! Some of the plainest Mennonites I know have the largest, most elaborate houses and the newest, shiniest vehicles and the most immaculate, manicured yards and the newest, most up-to-date gadgets. How does this fit into the 'stranger and pilgrim' mentality we say that we hold?

How come we fuss and argue over clothing, but nobody can touch our riches? We seem to view wealth and possessions as a sign of 'Good Stewardship' and 'God's Blessing' and God forbid that anyone should question that! This, in turn, makes us very susceptible to a 'holier than thou' attitude when it comes to people with less. People with less are looked at as Poor Stewards and what do you expect? We couldn't help them out with our hard earned money because *gasp* they might go out and make poor choices with it!

I don't know. Somehow I just don't think that's what Jesus meant when He said "Give to him that asketh thee...." It might be what He meant when He said "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God" though! I don't know. What do you think?

If we are called to be Holy, shouldn't that include our whole life, not just the way we dress? Is it possible that we Mennonites have focused so much on dress that we have missed the importance of living the way Jesus would have us live in other areas of our lives? Does it soothe our consciences somehow to dress plain and set apart from the rest of the world? Does it make any sense to take the verses about the headcovering, and modesty and such, literally but come up with excuses to not take the verses about riches literally?

31 Days: Asking Honest Questions

How do we deal the practical situations that come along in real life? How do I decide the answers to those questions I asked in the last post? I think it's important that we ask ourselves some honest questions about those things. "Why do I want to sew the extras on my dresses? Do I really think they will make me look more modest?" "Why do I want to join the crowds wearing the latest fashions? Do I really think it will increase my testimony to the world around me?" "When I stand before God and He says 'When I said women should have their heads covered, did you really think that's what I meant?' Can I honestly answer yes?"
The answers to those questions aren't based on rules, they're based on what I know of the Father's heart. Your answers to those questions might be completely different than mine and I have to be ok with leaving that between you and God. And, sometimes I think the answer is that it doesn't really matter! I don't really think God cares what color shoes we wear to church Sunday morning. He might care about our motive for the color shoes we are wearing, but the color of our shoes? I doubt it.
This whole idea is why, when it comes down to it, I don't believe it is necessarily 'safer' to raise a family in a group of people who look the same as us. I don't know but what children might be better off in a setting where everyone doesn't just do the same things! Children are not dummies. I have been amazed at the conversations we've had with our 10 and 12 year olds! You might be surprised how well children can answer those "Why" questions, and how much more permanently life changing is it to be pointed to the Father's heart then to be taught to live by a list of rules?!
Obviously it's possible to teach our children to think in any setting; it takes being intentional no matter where we are. But I think our Mennonite, run-by-standards churches have undermined the call to Holiness and have instead pushed the call to a list mindset way more than we realize! We're turning out children who have no idea how to ask the honest questions. Their only focus is "There's no RULE about this!" And if there is a rule "Let's do as little as possible to get by!"