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Growing Up Mennonite October 29, 2007 By Steve Hoover
Just prior to my birth, my parents and older siblings left the ultra conservative “Horse and Buggy” Mennonites. My father got a driver’s license and bought a car. For a period of time they visited various churches to help them chart the family’s future. It was at this time that my mother had what she vividly recalls as a “vision.” In the vision she saw Jesus, who compelled her to “come to Him.” He appeared to be beckoning her to follow Him. She was shaken, and sought the Lord concerning this vision.
It proved to be a turning point in her life and the event helped convince her and my father to once again embrace the Ordnung, and the Old Order Mennonite lifestyle. My parents followed their hearts in choosing community over convenience.
The observance of the Ordnung explains why I grew up without automobiles, cameras, computers, radios, TV, and tape players. It explains why we shunned higher education, had big families and lived simple lives. It explains why we wore plain clothes, suspenders, hats, and shaved our faces.
In our family of 11 we all had our place. Our family was our village.
Mennonites: Who Are They? The largest of today’s Anabaptist groups, the Mennonites are named after Menno Simons, a prominent leader among the Radical Reformers of the 16th century. The early Mennonites were known to be peacemakers and pacifists who insisted on a “believers only” baptism.
Old Order Mennonites: An Unusual Sub-Culture Often thought to be Amish, the Old Order (“Horse and Buggy”) Mennonites exist in America today as a thriving sub-culture whose testimony speaks through the lives they live.
The following is a quote from Horse-and-Buggy Mennonites: Hoofbeats of Humility in a Postmodern World:
“On a May Sunday in 1927, progress and tradition collided at the Groffdale Old Order Mennonite Church in Eastern Pennsylvania when half the congregation shunned the cup of wine offered by Bishop Moses Horning. The boycott of this holiest of Mennonite customs was in direct response to Horning’s decision to endorse the automobile after years of debate within the church. The resulting schism over opposing views of technology produced the group known as the Wenger Mennonites.”
Besides honoring Scripture as sacred text, the Old Order Mennonites must observe the Ordnung or “rules and order” that the church institutes.
Twice a year, in conjunction with communion, the Ordnung is read to the congregations. It spells out the details of Christian living and marks certain activities and possessions as “forbidden.”
The year 1980 was a terrible drought year, and crops throughout the Midwest reached total failure. Our fields were not producing enough bushels per acre to pay the custom combine bill. Even though we tried to water the garden, there was little abundance for canning.
I’ll never forget the day a large truck pulled in the drive from Pennsylvania. Our brethren had heard of our plight and collected thousands of quarts of canned goods to give to the churches in Missouri. My family was overwhelmed by the kindness of friends we had left behind a decade earlier.
My Life as A Plain Person Both work and play was a social concourse we rarely exited from. Though we were no doubt living below the poverty level, my life as a child left little to be desired. I never remember going hungry or without proper clothing or being abused or forsaken.
The older children worked outside the home, after the girls had learned the arts of home-making and the boys had gained basic knowledge of animal husbandry and agricultural skill.
I remember pushing my little brother in a stroller and we would both sing for customers who were buying produce from our garden. They would often press a quarter into our hands at the end of the song.
Fringe Mennonites In some ways, my family was “on the fringe” for Old Order Mennonites, and were seen by some as liberal.
My older brother and sisters were allowed jobs outside the home and we all went to public school. I think it was while I was in public school that I determined to later depart from the horse-and-buggy way of life.
My sisters would often come home from their “outside” jobs and sing to us the songs they heard on the radio. One of the first songs I remember singing was John Denver’s “Almost Heaven”.
Speaking in Tongues Our family spoke a German dialect known as “Pennsylvania Dutch” in the home, and a mixture of High German and Pennsylvania Dutch in our church services.
Though I was fluent in Pennsylvania Dutch, it is not a written language and is far enough removed from German to make communication difficult and something less than interesting.
I did not value retention of the German language nor did I see enough value in existing as a subculture when it was apparent there were others who were Christian, but did not abide by the lifestyle of the Old Order Mennonites.
Because I went to public school rather than a private Mennonite school, I did not learn to read and write in German which would have been very helpful in comprehending the church services and getting the best meaning of the songs and scripture.
The church songs are all sung very slowly and a cappella, so for me, having only a partial understanding of the language of the church was a real deficit to my spirituality.
We were taught to pray daily as children and my parents would pray privately each morning and night. We often had some family devotions led by my father though we did not practice this on a regular basis. We were taught that salvation was a free gift of God through the blood of Jesus, but assurance of eternal salvation was more often expressed as “a hope we have” and a heavy emphasis was placed on doing what was right in the eyes of God and the church.
It was while I was Mennonite, at age 16, that I first remember getting transparent and serious with God concerning my salvation.
I was given some cassette tapes by someone who knew I was hiding a cassette player. They were tapes from “Because of the Times,” with speakers like G. A. and Vesta Mangun, and Jeff Arnold. I listened to some of the sermons, but what I found most interesting was the way they all prayed together—out loud.
While listening to them pray, I felt the urging of the Holy Spirit to pray with them, and I cried and repented of my sins.
While I continued to rebel against the Mennonite way of life and soon left our home and the church, I believe it was this experience with God that kept me from going too far.
Within a few months after leaving home I joined a Pentecostal church.
My encounter with Christ did not result with me embracing the Ordnung as it did my mother, but it did provide direction and stability in my life as a young, rebellious teenager, and anchored me to the God of the Ordnung.
Recommended Reading
Horse-and-Buggy Mennonites: Hoofbeats of Humility in a Postmodern World by Donald B. Kraybill and James P. Hurd. This is an excellent book focusing on the life and culture of the Old Order Mennonites.
The Martyrs Mirror or The Bloody Theater by Thieleman J. van Braght. This is the stories, testimonies and letters of the Anabaptist Martyrs.
Recommended Viewing
The Amish, A People of Preservation is a PBS award-winning documentary that includes Amish and Old Order Mennonite footage. It is very accurate.
ninetyandnine.com
© 2007, Steve Hoover
---------- Steve Hoover lives with his wife Kristin, and three daughters, in Missouri's Lake of the Ozarks. He strives to find the balance between the Mennonite separatists and the permissive modernists. Having found a new definition of “horsepower” Steve speeds to his Chimney Sweep appointments providing “Everything Your Hearth Desires.”
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