In my fifty years as a member of Virginia Mennonite Conference, we have gone from being one of three Anabaptist-related communions here in Rockingham County (the other two being Old Order Mennonites at variance with each other) to having over a dozen separate spin-offs in our area today, none of which have any kind of regular communion fellowship with each other.
One example of severed ties particularly painful to me was when our neighboring Cornerstone Church of Broadway (established in 1986 as a VMC congregation separated from Trissels Mennonite), left our Conference in 2001. I had been pastor of the neighboring Zion Mennonite church for twenty years prior, and many of its founders were my friends. I even suggested the "Cornerstone" name to its lead pastor.
During its first decade the Cornerstone church experienced dramatic growth, establishing daughter congregations in Elkton, Mt. Crawford, Port Republic, Waynesboro and Richmond, Virginia, and as far away as Charleston, South Carolina, and Versailles and Hannibal, Missouri. According to my 1997 Mennonite Yearbook, Cornerstone had become a network of nine churches in its first ten-year of existence. It was an exciting and blessed time, and later even more congregations were added, as far away as Florida.
Since then most of the 17 pastors listed in the 1997 Yearbook have severed their ties with both the parent Cornerstone group and the Virginia Mennonite Conference (a part of Mennonite Church USA), and are leading growing evangelical congregations with names like New Life, Crossroads Community Church, Freedom Fellowship and Abundant Life. A number of the pastors involved continue to fellowship and work together on an informal but regular basis, and I know of at least two who are an active part of a VMC church today.
I've always liked "Cornerstone" as a church name, a term the Apostle Paul used for its founder (Jesus) in his letter to the Ephesians. And in his first letter to believers at Corinth Paul begs the church to maintain unity based on the conviction that "Other foundation can no one lay than than which is already laid, Jesus Christ," a verse Menno Simons attached to all of his many writings. In other words, all who are built on that one foundation, with Christ as cornerstone, and who partake of one bread, are vitally connected both to each other and to their Lord.
A year after Cornerstone's departure, the five congregations in VMC's Mountain Valley District, most within a fifteen mile radius of here, also withdrew. I couldn't keep from crying when this happened, at one of our two 2002 Conference assemblies. These occasions have always been for me a kind of reunion of my "freundschaft," my spiritual extended family. Now we were experiencing yet another painful breakup.
The largest of the Mountain Valley churches, Dayton Mennonite, has since affiliated with the Conservative Mennonite Conference. The other four smaller Mountain Valley congregations continue as an independent network.
I am beyond saddened that followers of Menno, along with all too many Christians today, are so prone to divide and re-divide from each other with distressing frequency. This in spite of Jesus' fervent prayer that his followers "remain one as I and the Father are one," so that "all may know know that you are my disciples."
So here's my own fervent prayer:
That all parts of the former Cornerstone network, the Mountain Valley congregations and all other former members of Virginia Mennonite Conference reunite with each other and renew a collaborative working relationship in all areas possible.
That all area conferences who were formerly a part of the "Old Mennonite" or "General Conference Mennonite" family of churches make peace with each other and commit themselves to prayerfully maintaining their "unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace," meanwhile extending a hand of fellowship to more conservative Amish and Old Order Mennonite congregations as well.
That Anabaptist/Mennonite groups also reach out to the Protestant communions from which they were separated nearly 500 years, ago and explore ways of strengthening ties with each other as followers of Jesus.
That all Protestants seek ways of reuniting in table fellowship with Roman Catholic and Orthodox communions around the world, in order to celebrate our being "one great fellowship of love throughout the whole wide earth."
I know that sounds impossibly ambitious, but what lesser vision would be worthy of our daily petition that God's "will be done on earth as it is in heaven"? Isn't this what Jesus' prayer is all about?
It is, after all, his church, not ours. He is the One True Vine, and we are mere branches. He is our only connection to the divine roots on which our lives depend.
6 comments:
Thanks for your vision, Harvey. One area where nearly all of these groups still fellowship together is at the Mennonite Relief Sale.
The Old Order Mennonites don't officially endorse having members take part in the Relief Sale, but yes, MCC and MDS do tend to bring us together. Interestingly, the meat canning and apple cutting has different church groups assigned to different days, but people aren't discouraged from coming on days other than when their group is assigned.
For in the first place, when you come together as a church I hear there are divisions among you, and in part I believe it. For there must in fact be divisions among you, so that those of you who are approved may be evident. (1 Corinthians 11:18-19 NET)
Menno Simons felt certain things in the universal Catholic Church had to be made evident. These divisions exist to this day.
Jesus did promise us we would one day be unified, but it will have to be his work. The legacy of man's attempts at building an earthly unified church is not a good one.
Thanks for your thoughtful response. I agree that unifying must be Christ's work, but aren't we to pray every day that God's will be done here on earth as it is and will be done in heaven?
And I think you'll find the Greek word in verse 18 to be different that the one in 19. In any case, Paul's solution would always be to have the church apply discipline to individual erring members, not to divide the church into different and separate groups, as in those who practice communion appropriately and those who do not. Otherwise he would be contradicting everything he said in chapters 1-3, not?
I think it's foolhardy to try to force Jesus' kingdom to come on earth. Constantine tried. The Crusaders tried. The Munsterites tried. Cromwell tried. All of those things are now a dark stain on the history of Christianity.
But I do pray alongside you every day for God's well be done on earth as it is in heaven. I think that's the best way we can be aligned.
How could we apply individual discipline to erring church members? What if two members in the church can't agree on what proper discipline should be?
Matthew 18 shows us Jesus' way. Not sure where you read the idea of "forcing" God's kingdom to come. It's all about prayer and persuasion as we seek to demonstrate, here and now, what God's future will look like.
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