Wannabe Mennonite

I want to be a Mennonite. Atleast I think I do. The Mennonites are part of the Anabaptist tradition and Baptists are some sort of deriviation from them. Lots of people clump Quakers and Mennonites together. Both have been known for being pacifists and promoting peace and reconciliation across the world. They were some of the first to promote religious toleration in the United States and denounce slavery. The Mennonites created the Christian peacemaking teams that go to war-torn or just oppressed areas and offer love, support, and compassion! (I hope to be able to go on one of these trips in the next year!)


Anyways, I've wanted to be a Mennonite since reading the works of John H. Yoder and other Anabaptist scholars while at Duke. I feel like the Mennonites are more faithful to baptist ecclesiology and whenever I take those on-line "What faith tradition are you" quizzes, I always come up like 99% Quaker/Mennonite.


Another (secret) reason I want to be Mennonite is because they don't have such a checkered past. You don't hear about them splitting and fighting with each other. They are always portrayed postively in movies/tv shows. (There are the movies that make fun of the Amish, but they only make fun of them because they choose to live differently than the world's standards, something that I personally like about them)

So I've been going to a Mennonite church and while the structure of the service is similar to the structure in a Baptist church, there seems to be a couple of deeply constrasting differences. One being that everyone is so nice and peaceful and quiet! The services are very reflective and quiet. Everything is so peaceful! (Have I communicated how peaceful and quiet things are?!?)

Which is the thing....It's almost too peaceful! I like to consider myself a laidback person, but these folks make me look like Tatiana from American Idol or something! There is this time in the service where anybody and everybody can share how the music, sermon, or scripture impacted them, or what reflections they have and it's great, but it's just kind of funny to because everyone is just so respectful of one another. I haven't seen any fights! And that's unfortunately something that I'm just not use to.

It seems so often in the baptist churches I've been a part of everyone is just kind of loud and we yell at each other and we sing loud, and we preach loud, and we love loud. I'm so used to this that being in the Mennonite church and everyone being so calm and peaceful is just weird. good weird, but weird. I think what the Mennonite's have going on is good and right, but I have to admit I miss my old rowdy Baptists.... I guess we'll see what happens!