So you want to join the Amish

i can count on two hands the number of people i know or have met personally that have joined the amish but this is a question i get a lot of on my site and uh in my email and even on this relatively young youtube channel so i'm gonna talk to you about joining the amish today what are some of the obstacles to that is it possible to do that are there certain communities where people do that also did i ever think about joining the amish myself i'll tell you about that at the end so first of all there are a number of obstacles to joining the amish and i should first say that the amish generally do not recruit other people to join them they're not evangelistic or proselytizing in that way if that's the right word so they're not out seeking converts i mean the amish have families of six eight ten children and most of them choose to become amish so they don't have any problem uh with growing their church it's 99 natural growth it's not something the amish are seeking to do to attract outsiders to join them and there's some reasons for that one is that the amish acknowledge and realize that it would be quite difficult for an outsider to join them you obviously have the cultural and technological challenges there and obstacles and differences there between an ambition and non-amish lifestyle this should be pretty obvious the car uh you know elect public electricity in your home other forms of technology the internet all those things that we non-amish are comfortable with used to dependent on those are all things that you're not going to have as an amish person so that's an obstacle right off the bat so the amish are pretty realistic about that on the other hand too it's um you know there's there's a big cultural gap there's a mentality gap between a lot of the outside world and the amish in certain ways right we're very individualistic in the uh non-amish world or at least the non-amish you know traditional american sort of outlook is that way and so the amish tend to be more of a communal or community-minded uh group where the community comes first before the individual so that right there is its own kind of challenge kind of a shift in mentality or thinking for someone who enters the amish from the outside it fairly often doesn't work out when people do join the amish and people i think are attracted to the amish for different reasons i think sometimes people are living a very busy hectic life with uh problems and sometimes they look at the amish as an ideal sort of community maybe a solution to all the pressures and things they're feeling from their own lives and that's not what the amish are for even though some people maybe seek them for that reason so the amish don't really recruit now that said there are certain amish churches or groups that you may consider to be more open to curious outsiders or open to seekers as they're called religious seekers there are examples of communities that had outsiders join of course there's one in virginia there's another one in maryland i can think of that has had a number of non-amish join in the past there was one in north carolina that had quite a few non-amish joined but they eventually the community eventually became something that was an amish it actually became a more progressive church uh i believe a beachy amish uh church there so the idea there was to set up a community which would be easier for outsiders to join and in the end the church actually became more i mean i would say more likely outside but they became not not a no order amish church anymore not a horse and buggy amish church anymore that's another kind of concern of the amish in some cases is that you know an influence of an outsider and coming into the church someone who doesn't have the same sort of background or mentality you can't imagine that could be potentially disruptive in some cases but you do see certain communities that are more friendly towards the outsiders in this sense the new order amish or a group that have a reputation for being a little bit more uh evangelically minded or uh mission minded towards outside uh people that could be one sort of pathway for some people as to through a new order church that said it's not like they're getting a ton of people joining the new order amish either by the way if you're enjoying this video if you don't mind give it a quick thumbs up like i appreciate that so how do you join the amish i'm not going to be able to give you the exact formula and what it would take in each community because probably that's different in different places because it's not something the amish deal with that often right it's not like every amish community has a lot of experience with outsiders wanting to join just because it's not that common but typically the amish would generally speaking expect you to come and live with him for a certain amount of time and of course live in an amish manner live you know understand amish ways live kind of as an amish person in the community uh in other words you know learning pennsylvania dutch which is the first language of the amish community in church uh you know learning how to you know hitch up a horse and buggy seeing how you fit into the community when amish youth are baptized they have to take a series of preparation courses where they're prepared for that step and of course that would come for that potential joiner at some point but the first part i think is to understand if they could fit and how they would feel living in the community just from a you know from a cultural and lifestyle standpoint i sometimes get messages from people like hey so which communities should i join you know i'm ready to go uh is this one better than this one what do i do who do i talk to where do i sign up it's just almost as if it's like you know you just send in a an application and you know you could be an amish person in a week or two right and it doesn't work that way that's a longer term process and some people might find that that during that time that it's not for them right so you know i'm not going to give you the playbook of how to join the amish you probably would need to talk to the individual amish community that you are interested in but you'd expect something something like that you know you have to live as an amish person uh first before you can even see if that's something you could uh do or or feel comfortable being really because it's not just doing something it's really about being something else being a part of something else being a part of a completely different community type of community for for most people rich stevic who wrote the book growing up amish the rum spring of years estimated that around 300 people had joined the amish but about two out of three of those had ended up leaving again so why do some people fail to join or why do some people join and then end up leaving the amish again i think there are several reasons why and this is what i've gathered over the years from hearing people's stories and and just seeing seeing these things play out one reason may be simply that they joined for the wrong reasons i believe it was an amish bishop i think rich stephen quoted this in his book but it would he said something like the people come from the outside and they want to join us and they want to join us for the wrong reasons because they maybe they fall in love with one of our young people and they think that's you know they want to join for love and marriage and uh it's not because they're drawn to our faith into our uh the way we live our faith and the way we believe uh christian faith should be lived out that kind of strikes at the heart of it if you want to join the amish just because you think it'll solve all your problems or you know you think that the amish lives some you know green lifestyle in harmony with the earth and you you're into that and you think you know i'd love to be a part of that kind of a community but not understanding really what else is behind the amish you know way uh then you know you're you're destined to fail because there's a lot more to it than that and like i said the amish are not you know a solution to personal problems which i think you know sadly i mean i've gotten some messages from people where you know it just they sound like they're in a sad state and they've obviously got personal issues family issues in their own lives financial issues in some cases and uh you know they think joining the amish is going to solve all that it's not so they need to deal with that you know on their own sort that stuff out and you know it's probably they're probably not really interested in joining the amish i would guess or just interested in those problems being solved you know i don't want to sound too negative here because there are some people that are genuinely drawn to the amish that's another kind of group of seeker that are drawn to the amish for these for the faith reasons right because they feel that the way the amish live a christian faith is they feel it best reflects say the early church and kind of what jesus left the apostles to to to go and spread spiritual conviction seekers let's say so some people join for the wrong reasons they don't understand that there's a christian faith that's underneath all this that's a huge part of all this and uh they're joining because they just think it'd be cool to live on a farm and uh you know grow your own food and you know be organic and or whatever live off the grid you know so there's that's kind of a lifestyle seeker type you come for that that's fine but you don't need the amish for that right there's a whole lot of other stuff that comes along with the amish uh besides just you know living off the grid and having an organic farm most owners don't have organic farms to begin with but that's another topic another issue that causes people not to become amish or to leave the amish is that they join and then they become disenchanted with the the amish because you know when they looked at these people from the outside they saw them as some ideal type of people that they're i don't know perfect people or this is some kind of a utopia or nothing goes wrong and people don't have problems people don't have issues they certainly don't have the same issues we have in the modern world right and they they come to the amish and they find out the amish people too and they have their own problems there are issues in relationships in the amish community their people have you know all the sort of foibles and flaws that are a part of human nature also exist within the amish doesn't mean that the amish don't try to be good people and certainly there are many many good people among the amish but they also have flaws because they're people and so some people come from outside and they see that and they get they they become disenchanted that you know leads to some people leaving so many people come in and they you know they may even try to change the amish in some direction right you know you guys do everything great but this one thing you don't do kind of the way that i think you should be doing it so let me try to improve this group so that that doesn't really you can imagine work out too well and you can also see that maybe one of the concerns of the amish about outsiders are joining so all that said i feel like i've just been really negative for a while but there are cases of non-amish people joining the amish i know several of them and i've got some friends that were not amish and they're amish now they joined um you know been amish for many years one of them i can tell you about one would be a woman named marlene miller marlene c miller she was a woman i didn't actually know marlene super well i did visit with her one time in her home in ohio and she actually i think i did a little interview on the website with her some years ago marlene came from a community in ohio right near the hills county community and she you know grew up not amish she was english she was i think a cheerleader a drum majorette in the marching band in her high school and she ended up meeting an amish guy and a young guy in her community and they i guess fell in love and she ended up joining the amish now i said you know kind of this idea of joining the amish because you fell in love with someone uh some amish mean i think that's the most ideal way to do it but of course it does happen and it has happened it's happened even in uh you know long ago history because there are cases of people joining the amish from you know 100 200 you know years ago or more of course lifestyle differences were probably a lot less in those times anyway marlene joined the amish she ended up she stayed amish all her life she had a big family i remember visiting with her i don't know it's probably seven or eight years ago and marley was just the most happy and fun and bubbly kind of person if you matter you would you would remember her she wrote a book it was originally called grace called me home and then later was re-uh issued as called to be amish when i did a little q a or interview with marlene on the website i asked her i was just kind of curious to get her take and i asked her a few things i asked her what aspect of amish life was the hardest for her to adopt or adapt to and she said that number one was the language so learning pennsylvania dutch pennsylvania german number two she said it was sewing and number three was farming okay so she came from i guess a non-farming household she said it it was 1971 before i ever tried harnessing and hitching up our road horse she sounds like she wasn't ever immediately a horse person so if you read marlene's book and if you talk to her and you know read this you know interview i did with her uh you know she maybe joined for you know love of a of a young man her husband eventual husband but uh she seemed to have a pretty strong conviction in her faith as a christian and uh being an amish person in the community i also asked marlene what would you advise someone who wants to join the amish marlin said that whether you're amish or not you need to repent ask jesus christ our savior to come and live within your heart read the bible every day and be obedient to his word seek a real bible believing church the lord may want you to become an amish christian not just anyone can do this i also asked her if she knew anyone else who had joined the amish and she said that yes two married families who lived 10 miles from us i joined and then also another man who was in his 70s wanted to marry an amish widow and he joined the amish faith married her and had a wonderful life sadly marlene passed away last year in 2020. i have a couple of other friends who've done that i've definitely met a handful of people as i was selling books in different communities who had joined the amish i remember at least two or three in indiana that i met in different communities there in other examples we had a series of blog posts starting back in 2012 from a woman named ann whose son had and had joined the amish and uh he ended up living in minnesota and she wrote a number of guest posts from the perspective of a mother uh having his son who would join the amish and what that was like what were some of the special joys of that what were some of the challenges of that she went to visit her son and you know shared some photos and of course she had some amish grandchildren there so that was a nice look into uh the life of an amish convert from a different perspective from the perspective of the mother so can you join the amish now i'm not going to pretend to be the expert on joining the amish but just from my kind of observation and experience understanding people over the years and hearing from people over the years i wouldn't recommend it for everyone i would i would just say to be really honest about kind of what you're looking for what are your motivations why are you attracted to the amish why do you want to join the amish because like marlene said it's not anyone not just anyone can do this and that's okay you know it's not forever it's not for everyone it's not for most people to become amish and the amish understand that i mean you can just look at the vast differences in the culture there right between amish and non-amish americans if you have a conviction and interest in the amish uh way of christianity well uh it may be that another church that shares a lot of the same beliefs as the amish but is maybe a little bit easier for a non-amish person to join like a mennonite church or a beachy amish church or something in that family may be a better fit in that case because there are churches that share a lot of the same beliefs as the amish they're also anabaptist churches but they also permit you know vehicles they have a more modern way of life so that could be a better fit in that case so i would just say be honest with yourself about why you want to join or why you have this interest in joining the amish because the amish you know it's not a it's not an escape plan if there are other issues going on um and uh it's not that the amish don't care it's just that you know you have to everyone in the amish community makes their own living it's not a communist system it's not like you just go there and get taken care of and everyone's expected to work hard and provide for themselves because each amish home is kind of independent and family is independent in that sense and that they make their own living although they of course help each other uh in the spirit of christian mutual aid when needs arise okay but it's not just a place to kind of go and hey take care of me and it's also not a place to go kind of try out the lifestyle or because you're into solar power or organic farming or you like uh horses you know that those are not the reasons to want to join the amish definitely visit the amish and make friends with them and you know experience that life and you know you can definitely do that but you can kind of get those things without becoming a part of a quite vigorous and drastically different church community one of my amish friends liked to quote the uh saying uh bloom where you're planted i can't i'm not sure who said that i'll put it on the screen if i can find it he kind of had that feeling well you know i'm he's amish you know this is where i'm you know this is where this is where i was planted i'm sure you know he he could be a part of a different church i could actually see him living as a non-amish person in a different alternate reality just based on his interests and is very learned and you know educated person even though he had an eighth grade education he's very well read and uh sharp guy right as like a lot of amish are but his outlook is bloom where you're planted and so uh you know that might be that's not that's not to say stay in a bad situation okay uh so that's not a an expression i would take to the extreme but that just gives you a perspective of an amish person it's kind of like making the best of it if you're in a good situation you make the best of it because even among the amish you know the grass is always greener somewhere else you know with the amish it could be that the amish church you're a part of you may see another church that looks more attractive to you because you don't like certain things about your own church and it looks like that church has got everything figured out and then you know you move over here and it's not quite what you expected and the grass wasn't greener so did i ever want to join the amish i got asked this once or twice on the channel already and i can say that there was a time when i first met the amish back in 2004 uh when i had been selling books in amish communities already for i think it had been probably several weeks three four weeks already and i had at that point i was in the davis county indiana community and i remember entertaining that kind of idea for at least for some period of time that it would be you know i was just still kind of uh i still maybe felt like i was in a movie at that stage i remember when my father first met the amish or visited my amish friends in pennsylvania uh he he described it as feeling like he was on a like on a movie set or something you know like a little bit unreal right uh you know but in a good sense so yeah i kind of briefly had that idea well it would be kind of cool to be a part of this community um but i quickly realized that it wasn't for me i mean i think i said i like my english creature comforts too much and uh even when i go to live with the amish now i miss certain things uh that i take for granted uh i guess i'm too soft to do it but no it's not about that but it's uh it's just you know it's it's not for everybody and that's okay and um i had a brief time when it was of interest to me but not nothing serious but that was something i kind of figured out pretty quickly it wouldn't be for me but i did have a deep interest in the people and i really came to really like and care for a lot of the people i met uh in those communities and so uh that's one reason i have this channel i guess i hope that uh covered the topic uh well enough trippa wasn't too negative because again there's not a uh you know there's not a one-size-fits-all uh you know solution in this thing so for some people joining the amish is the right decision or that's the or it's a good decision right uh it works out for them and i know some people you know that are in that boot so i hope i gave a more or less realistic perspective on this topic because it's just something uh i've written a ton of blog posts on this over the years actually the most commented blog post on the website is a post on the topic of joining the amish i'm doing two videos per week you can hit the subscribe button and stay in the loop for those my name is eric westner i met the amish through a door-to-door book selling job and so i visited many amish homes in a good number of communities across the country and i've visited a lot since then as well i run the amish america website thanks we'll see you next time [Music]

Channel: Amish America

Views: 150,341

Keywords: Joining the Amish, Becoming Amish, How to join the Amish, Amish convert, Converting to the Amish, Amish faith, Amish religion, Amish beliefs, Amish community

Id: W8x87lrtEr8

Length: 22min 11sec (1331 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 20 2021