I wanted to share some exciting new developments in the life of my family and ministry. As many of you know, my family left Texas at the end of 2013 to follow the Spirit’s leading to reenter vocational ministry. In January of 2014, I began pastoring Christiansburg Mennonite Fellowship in Southwest Virginia.
The last few years have been a blessing. While we came intent on staying a good while, the Lord has made it clear to us that he is moving us on to another place.
On Sunday April 3rd, an announcement was made that I have received the call to become the next senior pastor of Grantham Church in Mechanicsburg, PA.
Grantham Church is a historic Brethren in Christ Church (BIC) located next to Messiah College in South Central Pennsylvania, just 10 minutes from Harrisburg, the state capital. This strategic Anabaptist church of about 400 people serves Messiah College and the surrounding community.
Please pray for us in our transition. We are expecting our second child, Judah Lee, any day now. Thankfully, my wife Lanna will get to stay home with our boys. But in the meantime, I know she would be especially grateful for your prayers toward a joyful birth experience and quick recovery. Also, pray that our 3 year old Kainan (pron. “Canaan”) will adjust well to his baby brother.
My last Sunday in Christiansburg is June 26th. We will be moving the following day. I’ll begin work at Grantham on July 1st and preach my first sermon on July 17th. Your prayers and support are greatly appreciated during this time.
Thank you for walking with us on the journey of faith.
In my last post (Finding the Naked Anabaptist) I confessed that Anabaptism resonates with me more than any other historical tradition of church history. The 16th century Anabaptists were seeking a restoration of NT church life and practice. And for the most part, they did just that—paying for it with their lives.
The Anabaptists sought to recover a radical discipleship that would bring about a Kingdom revolution, not by power-over others, but instead through humble service and loving obedience to the teachings of Jesus.
The first Anabaptists believed their ideas to be rooted in NT orthodoxy and orthoproxy. They re-envisioned the Christian faith as it was before the church’s acceptance of political power and the wielding of the sword.
It was the Kingdom vision of Anabaptist leaders like Balthasar Hubmaier, Hans Denck, Conrad Grebel, and Michael Sattler that began a movement, lived on in several traditions (e.g. Mennonites, Amish, Brethren in Christ, etc.), and is alive today among “Neo-Anabaptists”—folks who ascribe to Anabaptism, but have no historic or cultural links to them.
In fact, it appears that an increasing number of evangelicals are leaving what’s left of Christendom and embracing Anabaptist convictions.
Authentic Christians Follow Their Christ
Stuart Murray, author of The Naked Anabaptist (2010), says that Anabaptists accepted the basic ecumenical creeds of the early church, but they wanted to go beyond theological statements to a description of Christian behavior.
The following is a list of seven core convictions set forth by The Anabaptist Network, expounded upon in Murray’s book. These core convictions are aspirations of an Anabaptism creatively at work in the world today:
Jesus is our example, teacher, friend, redeemer, and Lord. He is the source of our life, the central reference point for our faith and lifestyle, for our understanding of church, and our engagement with society. We are committed to following Jesus as well as worshipping him.
Jesus is the focal point of God’s revelation. We are committed to a Jesus-centered approach to the Bible, and to the community of faith as the primary context in which we read the Bible and discern and apply its implications for discipleship.
Western culture is slowly emerging from the Christendom era, when church and state jointly presided over a society in which almost all were assumed to be Christian. Whatever its positive contributions on values and institutions, Christendom seriously distorted the gospel, marginalized Jesus, and has left the churches ill equipped for mission to a post-Christendom culture. As we reflect on this, we are committed to learning from the experience and perspectives of movements such as Anabaptism that rejected standard Christendom assumptions and pursued alternative ways of thinking and behaving.
The frequent association of the church with status, wealth, and force is inappropriate for followers of Jesus and damages our witness. We are committed to exploring ways of being good news to the poor, powerless, and persecuted, aware that such discipleship may attract opposition, resulting in suffering and sometimes ultimately martyrdom.
Churches are called to be committed communities of discipleship and mission, places of friendship, mutual accountability, and multivoiced worship. As we eat together, sharing bread and wine, we sustain hope as we seek God’s kingdom together. We are committed to nurturing and developing such churches, in which young and old are valued, leadership is consultative, roles are related to gifts rather than gender, and baptism is for believers.
Spirituality and economics are interconnected. In an individualist and consumerist culture and in a world where economic injustice is rife, we are committed to finding ways of living simply, sharing generously, caring for creation, and working for justice.
Peace is at the heart of the gospel. As followers of Jesus in a divided and violent world, we are committed to finding nonviolent alternatives and to learning how to make a peace between individuals, within and among churches, in society, and between nations.
How do you feel about these seven core convictions set forth by The Anabaptist Network? Which conviction(s) do you agree or disagree with? Is there a conviction that resonates with you more than the others?
Most of my readers know that I grew up a Southern Baptist. I went to a Baptist university for my undergrad, and served in two SBC churches. Seven years later, I can say that I no longer think of myself as a Southern Baptist, for several reasons.
Primarily, it’s because I have found that I’m more closely aligned with another historical tradition in theology and church practice—Anabaptism.
I first encountered Anabaptism in college. I learned that the Baptists actually have historical roots going back to the 16th century Anabaptist movement.
John Smyth was an English separatist who planted the first Baptist church in Amsterdam. Before his death he had moved to receive believer’s baptism by the Mennonites, an Anabaptist group named after Menno Simons.
Smyth’s friends, Thomas Helwys and John Murton would return to their homes to form the first Baptist church in England. For my Baptist friends, the Baptist church was a mix of Protestant and Anabaptist ideas. It was Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and Menno Simons all under one roof.
Roger Williams was responsible for planting the first Baptist church on American soil. He rejected the theocratic view of the Calvinistic pilgrims, detested the idea of a Christian nation, and argued for religious liberty and separation of church and state––an idea that the Anabaptists had been ruthlessly persecuted for a century earlier.
So who were the Anabaptists? And what is Anabaptism?
The Anabaptists were a scattered and diverse group of 16th century separatists who first originated in Switzerland. The self-identified “Swiss Brethren” called for a “radical reformation” of the church that went far beyond the reform movements known as Protestantism.
The early Anabaptists rejected infant baptism as a civil rite, which denied the church’s relationship to the state, and called for strict adherence to the teachings of Jesus following a believer’s baptism.
Since it appeared they were being baptized a second time, their opponents called them Ana-baptists (re-baptizers).
These radicals claimed that Protestants only wanted a “half-way” reform because they refused to put down the sword and follow Christ in non-violence. They posited that the Reformers only rested in grace, but did not walk in resurrection life. Obeying Christ is the evidence of a changed life.
The Anabaptists denounced the emperor Constantine as “the great dragon” for fusing the cross and the sword in the 4th century. They called for a restoration of NT church life. This undermined the very foundations of Christendom (church militant and triumphant), and made them enemies of both Protestants and Catholics who held to the power of the sword.
Many Anabaptists were martyred during the 16th century. Their ideas would live on in the Mennonites, the Amish, and the Brethren in Christ.
The Naked Anabaptist
Enter Stuart Murray, chair of the Anabaptist Network and PhD in Anabaptist hermeneutics. Stuart is the founder of Urban Expression, a pioneering urban church-planting agency, and has spent the last fourteen years as an urban church planter in East London.
His recent publications include: Post-Christendom: Church and Mission in a Strange New World (2004), Church after Christendom (2005), Changing Mission (2006), and The Naked Anabaptist (2010).
Greg Boyd, pastor of Woodland Hills in St. Paul, has written the forward to The Naked Anabaptist. [It’s worth mentioning that his church is presently considering aligning themselves with an Anabaptist denomination.]
Stuart says that Anabaptism is being (re)discovered by folks from many different traditions. In fact, you might be an Anabaptist and just not know it.
“We believe that the Christendom era has bequeathed a form of Christianity that has marginalized, spiritualized, domesticated, and emasculated Jesus. The teaching of Jesus is watered down, privatized, and explained away. Jesus is worshipped as a remote kingly figure or a romanticized personal savior. In many churches (especially those emerging from the Reformation), Paul’s writings are prioritized over the Gospel accounts of the life of Jesus. And in many Christian traditions, ethical guidelines derived from the Old Testament or pagan philosophy trump Jesus’ call to discipleship.” The Naked Anabaptist p. 55-56
What does Anabaptism look like stripped down to to the bare essentials? Listen to Stuart discuss the core convictions of the Anabaptist Network.
In my last post (
Most of my readers know that I grew up a Southern Baptist. I went to a Baptist university for my undergrad, and served in two SBC churches. Seven years later, I can say that I no longer think of myself as a Southern Baptist, for several reasons.
The Centrality and Supremacy of Jesus Christ 