answering your questions || MENNONITES and AMISH

we were the Mennonites why do we dress so funny and what are we all about so we'll try to answer those questions in this video there's a couple things I wanted to say before we start the first one is that I do understand there are a lot of different backgrounds faiths on this channel I'm so honored that you're all here and you've all been just incredible and I wanted you all to know that this is not a video trying to get you to convert to my way of life I know there's just a lot of curiosity aha about how we live what we believe in is so on so this video is just trying to answer some of your questions that you asked having said all that it would be my personal desire that everyone would get to know Jesus Christ and the peace and joy that comes from following him I also ask that you be kind in the comments I know that these kind of discussions can quickly escalate into a lot of heated arguments well I'm not afraid of any type of question I do not want any kind of hatred or angry comments on this channel and I will definitely be going through and deleting anything of that nature having said that I do not mind controversial questions if you're truly interested in knowing with anything with any kind of questions you have I just know that I have been on other forums and channels where people that profess Christ have Spoon outright hatred and animosity towards other religious groups and I have absolutely no time for that anyone that is a true follower of Jesus Christ will not be spewing out hatred and anger so if anyone on here is not a Christian I truly apologize if you have run into anyone like this that has hatred and anger in their hearts and claim to know Jesus when truly they obviously do not so Before we jump into the questions I wanted to clarify that the term Mennonite is actually not really a religion it's more of a way of life and we our Christians touch more on that later our core central belief is that we believe in one true God that created the world and he loved man so much that he gave us a free will and the choice whether we're going to love him back or choose to walk away because truly love can only be loved when it's given voluntarily love is not love if it's forced as the most prized of God's creation human beings he gave us the free will to choose whether we're going to actually love him in return or not and so because man chose to sin woman man same thing sin entered the world and that's we've been dealing with that ever since but God loved us so much and he still didn't give up on us that he gave us the ultimate gift which was his only son who came down on earth showed us how to live and paid the ultimate price which he died for our sin so that our guilt could be removed he took the weight of a whole world on his shoulders all the sins of the world and paid a price for us like how much love is that and so he died for us so that all the guilt that we bear from our own sins he will take away if we just believe on him and turn from our sins we also believe that Jesus died and rose again and that he defeated sin and death and ascended to heaven and there he intercedes for us today we believe in the Holy Spirit that he sent to earth that lives and dwells within us and helps us to live a victorious life that guides us and decisions we make and yeah that pretty much sums up our faith in a nutshell so that is our faith now going on to your questions about Mennonite and our lifestyle so the Mennonite lifestyle is just a way of life a way that we have chosen to live out our Christian life trying to live it in a simple way and so obviously applications across Mennonites groups very very very much you have very conservative groups that would stay away from cars and such drive horse and buggy and then you also have Mennonite groups that actually wouldn't look like us and would appear a lot more like normal American Society and so the Mennonite groups that we're talking about would be the ones we're familiar with where if you see us in town we stand out and we look a little different so but still within that range of Mennonites there's still a lot of differences and so there's just not really a cut and dry answer so basically across most of the Mennonite spectrum we would all believe in the same core beliefs it's just the applications and how we decide to live out that vary from church to church so I had my list of questions laying on the counter and I had thought about asking my husband to join me and I figured out he probably didn't really feel like it and he saw my lesson he got extremely interested and so we will be answering them together so on to the questions okay we are ready to jump into the questions husband a wife we thought would be best to answer together first of all I would yeah I would like to say that I am NOT here because because we feel like a man has to answer these questions at just this YouTube project has been a little more my wife's hobby or mission and not yeah I haven't been involved terribly much so I just thought I'd throw that out there because yeah I feel like she's doing an incredible job and she could probably answer these questions better on her own than with me here but later oh we like being together yeah questions like this and you know I'm not on here very often because I'm not photogenic very funny as far as a bit of an introduction to Mennonites Mennonite Anabaptist in a way they're they're sort of interchangeable terms Anabaptist goes back to Reformation it basically stands for rebaptised they believe that infant baptism was was wrong that baptism was something that a person should choose shortly after that movement started Catholic priest by the name of men of Simon's left the Catholic faith he became convicted against some of the similar things infant baptism in a state church he didn't feel that was right and he joined the Anabaptist movement his followers started to be called Mennonites or call themselves on that night and they came over here because of persecution yeah persecution in Germany and Switzerland a lot of a lot of Mennonites came to America anyway so we're gonna jump into the questions there's quite a few here we'll try to not take too long but try not to give you just Pat answers as well but the first question is how did I come to know the Lord yeah I grew up in a Christian home and obviously was taught Christ and His salvation and one day I just decided that I needed Christ in my life I remember the morning I was 14 years old and I not beside my bed and asked him to save me and to I would give my life to him and I remember the incredible peace that brought and I've been trying to serve him ever since so it's not an elaborate story or anything but I'm very blessed to have grown up with good teachings and in a good home yeah for me I grew up with Christian parents was taught taught bought the Bible yeah there came a point in time in my life where yeah I realized that Christ was not my personal Savior and so I made a commitment to follow him it was the beginning of a journey that has still not ended and that's how I all right second question do men and ice get baptized the answer the quick short answer is yes they do baptism is something that first of all you make a commitment to Christ you repent of your past that must come before baptism baptism does not rid a person of their of their sin and it's also something that a person needs to be able to choose and not like say an infant where they have no choice in the matter that we had about this or Mennonites you know believe it up a believers baptism all right question 3 how many church services in a week this varies per congregation per Church but for our church it's every Sunday morning there's a few Sunday evening song services throughout the year and every other Wednesday we either have a part we have prayer meeting once a month and like immense like a members meeting once a month as well so it falls on every other Wednesday I know some churches have like a prayer meeting every Wednesday evening some have every other Wednesday evening but I'd say that's the majority of churches sprinkled in with probably revivals and weekend meetings and so on so just a quick answer for a broad spectrum so that takes us on to question number four Dianne Midkiff I'm sorry if I print out some of your names wrong asked or said I thought Mennonites used no music to their singing and that again varies per Church I mean I would say the majority of Mennonites would have no music as far as in their church services you'd be all yeah that's kind of acapella and Mennonites definitely do go together choir singing it does very good bet you'll probably get tired of that that we just say varies per church but yeah some churches like the church we go to currently allows musical instruments but it just varies so alright question five how do Mennonites in your area feel about internet smartphone use well the question says in your area we live in in a Mennonite area where there's several different actually a lot of different Mennonite churches that everything from saying no internet knows art phone - yeah not having a hard and fast rule about it Church we go to encourages having like accountability or blockers or that kind of thing on your phone or or with your internet there are other churches that allow it for allow internet for business only use and it's it's an issue that I think a lot of Mennonite churches are trying to find their way with and it's not it's not an easy decision or yeah okay this next question I think I'm gonna let my husband answer it again how can someone become a Mennonite now obviously this is not for a select group of people anyone can become a Mennonite but yeah you know once again we talked about the differences in Mennonite churches you know everything from rather conservative not driving cars to you know basically looking and being like like American Society so from our perspective to become a Mennonite they would want to know you if you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ they'd want to know whether or not you've been baptized yeah whether you're open to the church's direction in your life and you know if it's a yes to all those things and you know it's a matter of whether or not you feel like God's calling you to this particular church or faith or whatever it's that would be my perspective I know that um depending what Mennonite Church you would you would want to join up there would be differences in in what one would be maybe required to do or that's what we would be acquainted with another question that came was what are your tips for keeping your life in perspective and focus on God in such a busy world and I personally feel like I can't really answer this one because I'm really struggling with this myself it's quite the battle so if you feel like you've conquered he's got it having getting up from every morning at a certain time and having his devotions and I I struggle with a narrow area of life so alright number nine do we believe in eternal security my just letting a man sir know from my perspective I don't believe that that God keeps prisoners in other words if you make a decision to follow God and invite Jesus into your life I don't believe that that means your power of choices is then gone regardless of what you do with your life that you are always eternally secure and we all make mistakes and we all fail yeah I don't really believe our eternal destiny hangs on the balance of you know as soon as we make a small decision or whenever we fail once God's grace yeah I believe God's grace is is there to recover for a lot of our mistakes and I would really encourage whoever asked this question to dig into it a little deeper and I know that you know there are a lot of books out there that deal with this question in a much better way than we are obviously doing here but question 11 where you always Mennonite or did you start out as Amish that's a good question is there are a lot of Mennonites that used to be Amish both of us were Mennonites from the start my parents actually so there's there's Mennonites that would actually be called teen Mennonite a lot of people would might mistake them for Amish but they're not they would drive horse and buggy but they'd have electricity and so on and they would consider themselves a type of Mennonite and that's where my both my parents came from so my grandparents were old order Mennonite I would speak Pennsylvania Dutch I always hated my Dutch accent and I've struggled and tried to get away from it but every now and then I think I'm doing a good job and then I'll hear it creep back in videos so don't make fun of me and my pH accent okay we got question twelve how do we live out so the next question is pretty deep I'm sorry if I'm saying your name incorrectly it's marie-therese trace looks French I yeah asked how do we live out the Anabaptist Christian worldview in a biblical way until recently I had no idea what the core beliefs of Anabaptism were how you tried to deny the sinful part of human nature and misuse of talents in order to follow Christ but not talents themselves like photography videography music storytelling declaw children's play and being guided by principles and values and not arbitrary rules this one can get a little technical it's a very personal question because what what works for some people is not going to work for the next person this isn't something you can't you can just put in a box and say you know well this is how you do it and if you do these you know five things and stay away from these five things you will it's gonna happen that's its life's not that easy I guess for us well it means really watching something as simple as a social media and the amount of time that a person can spend on it I believe that it's an incredible blessing in a lot of ways you know it's it's also something you have to you have to be careful you don't overdo and and it's a very good question like I had wanted to say this earlier I wanted to be honest about Mennonites it's not just this perfect lifestyle not at all we're human like anyone else obviously positives about Mennonites I'm glad I'm a Mennonite I didn't know I wasn't always glad and I wrestle through some things in life and I am very thankful for the upbringing I had security in a lot of ways that I feel was a huge blessing but there are there are drawbacks with the Mennonites as well like relating to this question we as human beings like to have or we as Christians or human beings like to have less and check off things and it's just so much easier as a Christian if we could just have a whole list of things that we could say okay you know take a matinee for instance I'm I have I'm wearing this modest dress I have you know my head covering on and so on and so if I can check all these boxes that must mean I am right with God and it's not how it works and so that's the drawback that Mennonites struggle with is trying to hold on to the values that we hold on to as a group of people and not letting that become our security in our salvation because I'm not pointing fingers at anyone but it's definitely a tendency especially the more conservative you get I would say is it in my place to say that I would say like not really there's there's good people in all groups but you can there's some groups that I would feel maybe Christ isn't really in amongst most of them it's just become more of a form and obviously there's definitely Christians in the settings but I would feel like it's a tendency and it's something we have to be aware of that we always focus on the heart and what God wants us to do like yeah that's where a heart is really at and I'm not pointing fingers at certain groups of Mennonites like there's a very select few groups that I do know of is that I would feel probably aren't very christ-like but go by the name of Mennonite so yeah it's kind of a shame when when it becomes such a religion that it's just a form and not actually a heart thing so yeah hopefully that kind of covers the no what are you gonna say no I agree with you 100% right we're coming down to the last two types of questions about why we women wear head coverings and then also the difference between Amish and Mennonite which are the two most common questions usually ever asked yeah why Mennonite women wear a head covering and I know there's actually a head covering movement where a lot of women that aren't Mennonite also wear a head covering okay there's a verse in 1st Corinthians 11 that talks about a wood woman covering her head when she prays or prophesies I understand that that is it's one section one verse in the Bible that talks about this and it's actually kind of a confusing verse there's different people that take a different ways but we personally feel like that God is calling us to cover our heads when we pray I believe there are many Christian women out there that don't cover their heads but I find a big blessing out of it I hope that answers a question I think it's a God gives extra blessing maybe one when women do that I don't want to make light of the situation but it it's it's the kind of question a lot of it's what a lot of people ask when they they run into Mennonites is is asked about this because it's something that kind of stands out and we don't feel like we need to be argumentative about it and try to prove that this is what the Bible says because it there's a lot of sincere strong Christians that feel differently and we're not trying to say that that we have this thing understood and it's the way we believe personally okay the next question is about my sometimes you'll see me wearing more of a traditional cap style covering and sometimes you'll see me wearing the veil this isn't a religious thing it's just more one is more traditional and one is yeah more practical I guess and our church would wear both so some churches just wear one somewhere the other so yeah sometimes like I grew up with the traditional style so often when I go away I'll wear that so anyway it's just more of a tradition thing it's not a religious thing 15y de Mennonite women always have their hair up I would say this is probably more of a traditional thing as well I mean if you go back what another 150 years or so that's basically how women wore their hair and when you covered with the traditional bonnet style and it's just carried on through I don't know but I would say it's more of a traditional thing I I would say so - it's an interesting question I never really never really thought about it till somebody asked it do Mennonite women cut their hair now this is another kind of depending which group question so I would say majority of Mennonite women did not cut their hair as far as cut it like they believed that the verse says a woman a long hair is Moses a long hair is her glory or something yeah so we definitely believe that a woman should have long hair I do know some Mennonite women would trim their hair but for the most part I would say it's not that you would just do a really major cut to your hair and now finally the last question what is the difference between Amish and Mennonite and this is kind of a huge question and while he's a horse or no yeah I guess we could give like a real quick answer long answers getting pretty long but a lot of people when they see us what I find ironic is when we grew up in the Mennonite culture we can spot the difference between all kinds of Mennonite groups very quickly sometimes even by the types of car they drive is kind of funny actually and then you know you hear like people that are in our culture they often can't tell the difference between Amish and Mennonite and we think that's funny but in all honesty I guess we do look a lot similar to people who are familiar with us so what what else should you say about it there would be some some I would consider some rather major external differences Amish obviously Drive horse and buggies don't drive cars no we're talking about conservative Amish there's actually probably as many Amish groups as there a Mennonite groups maybe not quite varies a lot there's a lot of Amish that have left the tree like there there's New Order Amish yeah and then there's Amish that would drive cars and and so it's a lot like Mennonites but there's Amish groups so yeah what we're talking about is like the traditional horse and buggy Mennonites that you see you know in books and whatever that's what we're talking about so and then usually wear a hat like big straw hat they all have beards if they're married yeah no mustache there's a lot of external things and probably the big thing would be a horse and buggy they drop horse and buggy generally no electricity and no electricity Derrick's phones are usually outside of their homes that's another interesting thing I'm forgetting why anyway Amish are great people I have different friends that are Amish so I apologize for the abrupt ending to this our camera quit recording but we were almost finished and I also am sorry that this last question we sort of rambled and didn't answer it very clearly the difference between Mennonite and Amish is a question that I found a little bit harder to answer than I thought it would be typically we tend to focus on the external things and minor differences you know they drive horse buggy they don't have electricity they don't ride bicycles they ride on scooters the women usually wear aprons the men do not wear jeans they wear their homemade pants just a lot of little things they won't wear zippers most of the more conservative groups they have like snaps on their dresses and or maybe it's hooks hook and eyes on their dresses and shirts and pants I believe so it's a lot of little things but yet it just feels kind of weird talking about it like but I know people are curious about it but I'm sorry we didn't cover it very well we were starting to get talked out I believe to the end of this video and our minds were starting to wonder all over the place but as far as the difference between amish and mennonite externally I think we covered that Faith wise we decided not to really jump into that because it varies per Amish group and we didn't want it to come across like we are slamming them for maybe some differences that they believe that we wouldn't believe so so hopefully this video answered your questions I know some of our answers were a little bit scatterbrained but thanks for watching if you made it to the end and I'll be posting another video in the future with the questions that you had about me and our lifestyle personally just a general question and answer anyway have a good day guys god bless how do you feel about flip-flops we doing the cheese [Music] I don't get too big of a front

Channel: the Mennonite Mom

Views: 306,320

Rating: 4.88901 out of 5

Keywords: Q&A, question and answer, mennonites, amish, njfamilyadventures, njfamily, all about mennonites, mennonite lifesyle, amish lifestyle, mennonite faith, amish faith, difference between amish and mennonite, head covering, head covering movement, mennonites vs amish

Id: wR-_0qpSIvs

Length: 24min 28sec (1468 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 24 2019