Life on 11 — Why Anabaptism Matters Now

Welcome to the podcast that refuses to live life on mute.

It's time to amplify the truth and drown out the noise. Coming to you live from the Lord's Lair in the Shenandoah Valley, this is Life on 11. We're turning up the volume on faith and kingdom living. Here are your hosts, Jeremy and John.

What's happening dog what's up brother what's going on over there just chilling yeah it's a good night to chill it is it's been a little chilly outside again we got the like the old fake spring now we're back in the thralls of winter but you know what that means real spring is coming yeah i saw it i saw a facebook post today that said please excuse winter and spring is they have a custody battle over Virginia. That's pretty accurate. Ooh. Pretty accurate. Speaking of custody battles over

Virginia, I think next week we have a topic we might need to discuss. Mm-hmm. Virginia. Well, mainly Virginia. Mainly Virginia. Because that's where we live. That's right. And that's where we're dealing with issues right now. That's right. But that's next week. That's next week. That's a teaser. You don't want to miss it. Do not. You don't want to miss it. Miss it. We've been sitting on that one. We have been sitting on that one. For a little while. Yeah, it's true. It's true.

So we just came back from Marriage Bible Study. We had Marriage Bible Study tonight. We did. I've enjoyed Marriage Bible Study. It's been fun. Yeah. And tonight we talked about everybody's favorite topic. Dun, dun, dun. Sex. Oh, yeah. It wasn't as awkward as I thought it was going to be. It could have been more awkward. That's true. It could have been. You know, as church folk, we love to talk about sex. Yeah, we do.

Yeah. But we actually talked about that. That might be an interesting set of podcasts for us to do one day. Whoa. Because as I alluded to- Could be interesting. Yeah. As I alluded to during the Bible study, there's plenty of people out there that will say that the church has not done a good job talking about sex in a holistic way. Yes. You're absolutely right. I mean, yeah. And then it's actually stunted a lot of people's spiritual growth because we awkwardly don't want to talk about it. And so-

But we don't mind listening to the world talk about it. That's it. Man, we're like, hold on. We got to be careful. We're like, we just did like too many podcasts in our intro. Yeah. So like we're really setting the bar pretty high. That's it.

We better not mess these up. So basketball season's upon us. Oh, yeah. March Madness, baby. March Madness. Who you got? Who's your final four and who's your winner? Oh, goodness. I'd have to look to see my final four again. But I know it's Michigan. I got Michigan winning the whole thing. I got Duke, Purdue, Michigan. And man, can't remember who the other one was. Can't remember who the other one is. I'd have to pull it up and see. Yeah.

But I got Michigan winning the whole thing. You got Michigan winning the whole thing. Yep. Are you confident? I mean, is anybody ever confident in March Madness? Yeah. Well, I mean, some people. I mean, the only time that I ever got the champion right was when UVA won it all. That was just a homer pick. And it was, yes. But. So I've got Michigan State, Arizona, Florida, and Michigan in my Final Four. and I got Florida to win it all. Okay. Okay. Which I'm not super confident about like you.

Yeah, it's hard to be confident about that. Yeah, well, here's the thing. I just don't, I hate pick, I don't, it's really hard to repeat, especially in March Madness, but daggone that Florida team looks good. Yeah, okay, so I do have Florida in the final four. Yeah. Duke, Florida, Purdue, Michigan. I got Duke versus Michigan in the championship. Michigan winning by two. Okay, book it. That's what I got. What's your biggest upset? What's the biggest upset you have?

What's the biggest upset I have on my bracket? I mean, some would say I have Kansas to beat Duke in the 16. Yeah, I mean, that's not... That's a pretty big upset, some would say. I know one I have that you really are going to be mad at me for. Yeah. South Florida over Louisville in the first round. Yeah, I am mad about that. I guarantee you don't like that. I actually erased that from my memory. Well, now it's back, buddy. Now it is back. No, I just can't get on that boat.

Okay, so the biggest upset I have is McNeese over Vanderbilt in the first round. That's a 12 over a 5. That's my biggest upset. So what makes you go there? Well, Vanderbilt has been a little bit up and down here at the end of the season. So if they have a down night, they got a chance to get. Well, I don't know if this is necessarily an upset, but I know my controversial decision on my bracket that you were very mad at me about is I have Gonzaga

going to the Elite Eight. Yeah, that's not happening. You are fundamentally opposed to that. I have Gonzaga beating Purdue going to the Elite Eight. Yeah, not going to happen. Not going to happen. But that's why they play the games. That is true. And I cannot wait. It's going to be fun. We're going to watch that. It's always fun. What do we watch tonight? Miami, Ohio, and... Over there. SMU? Is it SMU? Yeah, SMU. Yeah, I played SMU. Cool.

Cool. I like it. I like it. It's always best time of year, man. Best time of year. Oh, man, I love it. Love it. Love it. And then when it's over, like, it's nice outside and, like, spring is here. It's like the ushering in of spring. Yep. I love it. Yep. It's good stuff, man. Yeah. It's good stuff. Everything else is good for you? Everything else is good? Yeah, I think so. I mean, I've been super busy at work. Just every day goes by like a flash because I'm so busy, but That's okay. I get that.

How about for you? Everything else? It's good. I think it's good. Good. I think it's good. You know, had a little kink in my plans this week for my week, but it worked out good. I think I'm better off for it. Well, good. Yeah. It's always good to hit stuff running.

Oh, we had our men's retreat over the weekend. Oh, yes. Yeah, dude. Yeah, we got to hit on that. Yeah, it was a really good time. It might have been my favorite men's retreat. I'm going to say it was my favorite, actually. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We had some, I mean, always we have good food, but really good messages, I thought, about men on the Watchtower, which I thought was a really great theme, and the messages were very, very good. Yeah. And then we did a little...

Shooting of weaponry. I'm going to bleep that out. Oh, sorry. We didn't do a little shooting of weaponry. We did a lot of shooting. We did. There was a lot of weaponry. It was a good like four or five hours that we shot. Yeah. Like, and that was. It was a good combination of guys. There were some older guys. Yeah. Yeah. It was really good. I think. Yeah. And one thing I should say to everybody out there, the setup that we had for the range, like the safety setup we had was actually perfect.

It was. Like it was really because a lot of times if you don't have somebody like in charge of that like things can get a little out of control and messy but it was very clean. Did a great job. I think it was I think it was just great. Yeah. It was a great men's retreat. Yeah. It was awesome. If you don't have a men's retreat you should get one. You should. You should. You should start that and if you don't have an idea how to start one you can reach out to us.

Because there's some really awesome guys at our church that put one together, and they do a great job. And I'm sure they would be happy to talk with you about it because I think it's – dudes need that time. Yeah, definitely, definitely. I mean, even though – I mean, really, we were only together for like 24 hours, but it does seem like longer than that for some reason. I don't know why that is. Yeah.

But that's very good. Good stuff. Yeah. So tonight we're wrapping up our Anabaptism Radical Frequencies, and we're going to put a bow on it tonight. And we're going to talk about why we need Anabaptism. I think we live in a space and time and a culture that needs Anabaptism. It needs an Anabaptist voice. And like we've talked about, the bad news is some of that Anabaptist voice has

been compromised by the world. And in other settings, it's just not... I think we talked about this early, that it's easy for us because we kind of live in the Anabaptist capital of the world, right? The valley up into Pennsylvania, Anabaptism is all over the place. Are you calling us the Anabaptist belt? Yeah, we kind of are. Okay. Yeah, we're in the Anabaptist belt. And for lots, actually, it would probably be the Anabaptist suspender. Just saying. Okay, the Anabaptist suspender.

Wow. But it would, I think we can take for granted because there's a very dense population of Anabaptism where we are. Yes. There's not everywhere. That is true. So, yeah, it's kind of it's it's kind of be hard for us to to relate outside of here. So that sounds kind of weird. But somebody came to you and said, Jeremy, we want to start an Anabaptist. Why should we start an Anabaptist movement in a place that doesn't have the Anabaptist voice?

What are some of the things you might say to him? I mean, not just to talk about all of the topics that we've discussed, but essentially every single one of those is the reason that anabaptism is beneficial everywhere. You've got community. You've got believing the Bible and putting God's word first. I mean, just those three things right there are a recipe for successful community and happy people and just joy, essentially. Yeah. And yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what, what, what else, what else can you add to that? I know I'm missing some of the ones we talked about. Yeah, I think the biggest thing for me is, and we've talked about this briefly on some podcasts, like we live in a world that is in a church culture that is extremely consumeristic. True. you know, the product of church is something that we have made into an experience that we consume. And Anabaptism at its roots is so hard to be a consuming movement, right?

Because of that, like the emphasis on community and the emphasis on service and the emphasis on peace. Those things are very hard to just consume. They are things that you must participate in. Sure. And so I think when we live in a culture that Christianity can be promoted as, you know, or church experience can be promoted as a product, you know, show up, have somebody sing to you and have a band and have a pastor preach to you and drop your kids off in the nursery and come sit in church for

an hour. And like, it's just all centered on your experience. It's very hard to do that in an Anabaptist flavor. And that would kind of be the number one thing that I would say to folks is it's like radically different than that. Because you can't do those things well. You can't do community or you can't do service. You can't do peace. You can't even really do simple living if you're only looking at your experience with Christ as something you consume.

That would be the number one thing I would say. No, that's very, very well spoken. Yeah, like usual. I don't know about that. And I think the other side is, I feel like anabaptism wrestles with things better than some other denominational outlooks, like wrestles with the idea of peace, wrestles with the idea of non-conformity. I feel like... At least the hard questions are asked, where in other places, they're not so much. Would you say Anabaptist does conflict well?

Because some of those topics could create conflict. Okay. So I used to say when we were in the part of the Church of the Brethren, and their tagline was simply peacefully together. I said it probably ought to have said simply passive-aggressively together. Okay. Okay. We don't really do conflict well. Okay. But we do do Bible study well. Okay. All right. And I think animatism at its core makes that space, right? Now that can bubble up into conflict, you know. Yeah, sure. All sorts of places.

But because, and like, we live in a very like me-centric. So one of the things. Oh, our society? Yes. Well, so it's interesting. One of the things I'd love to like, I'd love to do some research on that I've never gotten, I've never gotten the ability to that I would love to do some more research on is like the seventies and eighties coming out of like the radical Jesus movement into the, what I would call the me and Jesus movement. Okay. Where everything became so personal about our faith.

Like, you know, it was all about personal salvation, a personal, a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. And nobody can know if you're going to heaven, but you'd like, and those things are all true, but it's almost become like we became fixated on that.

And and and and so you know nobody gets to tell you what the holy spirit's saying to you or nobody gets to tell you what god's saying to you and anabaptism kind of pushes back on that and goes no no it's okay we can we have a book that could to speak and we have a community hermeneutic we talked about those things yeah yeah and and i think we do anabaptism's core puts value and if somebody you know in so we can talk about controversial things

if our communal hermeneutic is right there you go with that, sorry yeah I can't if our group bible study is good hey okay alright now I know what you're talking about how about that thoughts on that. Yeah, no, I mean, what you just said, when you look at how church has evolved from the 70s and 80s to then the you and Jesus and nobody can tell you except you, like what you, that is how Christianity, using the broad term, has gotten so loose, so to speak.

Is because that has been taken all the way to the extreme, where, like you're saying, in Anabaptism, we're still like, hey, we're checking this against the Bible, and that don't check out, right? It's not just what you say. It's what the Bible says. Yeah. So in other Christian circles, and even some of the Anabaptist circles,

we've gotten past that point. Yeah. And we've touched on that in some other podcasts, too, but that's exactly what's happened and why, oh, man, I might regret saying this, but real anabaptism is so important.

Bonafide A1 gold standard. All right, so we didn't talk about this before the show. Oh, no. You may shoot me for us this question. I might. What are the shortcomings of anabaptism? Ooh. Well, I do think that in some ways, anabaptism still struggles with some legalism issues, maybe not as bad as when I was growing up. I don't think it's as severe or prevalent as it was then.

But but i do like there is still some judgment to be brought down from some people not, justifiably because because we're taking the bible as as god's word as we should but we're also using it to make make rules and not not give grace yeah so so i think we struggle at that well because anabaptism kind of puts that like emphasis on it's not just what you believe it's how you act. Sure.

Right. So actions, whereas some denominations are like, well, as long as you, you know, the one saved, always saved, as long as you pray a sinner's prayer, you're in. Yeah. And most Anabaptism wouldn't say that. Yeah. And so, yeah, so actions speak. Yep. Yeah. That makes sense. I mean, that's really probably the biggest one. Biggest downfall I can think of just with what, I mean, you know, you have it anywhere else, people are people.

Yeah. You're going to have personal conflicts. That's not, special to Anabaptism that's everywhere you go anytime you have a group of people you have personalities and but that's everywhere that's not just Anabaptism yeah so. I got two. Okay. The first, and again, this is pain with really broad strokes, but I think as a whole, like number one, I don't think, I don't think Anabaptists do evangelism well.

Okay. I think because we're like, we talk about simplicity and we talk about, you know, the ordinary. So I think, um, I don't think Anabaptism is really good at evangelism. I think that. And when you say evangelism, are you speaking not necessarily like sending missionaries to other countries? You're talking evangelism, like local community, like, yeah, next door.

Exactly. Like thing. Well, and I mean, like a perfect example is that I know of at least two Anabaptist places that they do service ministries, right? They go in and they help rebuild houses and they do whatever, but they don't attach the gospel to it. And I'm like, oh, and they're like, well, if somebody asks us, you know, while we're there, we'll tell them about Jesus. But like, here's a really good- I feel like we've talked about this on a podcast before. I think, yes.

You know, and so like all about helping and all about showing up, but sometimes like the, the, the evangelism part of that isn't there, you know, traditionally. Especially modern times, like Anabaptists and Mennonites and people like that, we're not really good church planters. Like that's something that we do well in our DNA, you know, like, because again, like, I think it's that simple approach and it's, you know, so that would be the first thing.

And I think the second thing is, from my experience, I don't know that Antibaptism talks about the Holy Spirit a lot. I feel like we kind of, we were really good about talking about Jesus. We talk about Jesus a lot and focus our faith on, you know, what would Jesus do and following the footsteps of Jesus, being the hands and feet of Jesus. But a lot of, like, because again, I think because of DNA, we don't talk about

the Holy Spirit a lot. And we don't, you know, when the Holy Spirit shows up, we talk about the spirit moving. In fact, funny enough, because one of the like hallmark brethren hymns is moving our midst. Okay. In our midst, our spirit of God. Right. Right. But there's a lot of times where like if the Holy Spirit would actually move in our midst, like it might scare some good Anabaptist folks, you know. So we talk about the spirit as a collective. I just I feel like that's a that's

a that's a side of Anabaptism. I don't know. Maybe growing up in the Mennonite church, you might have a different experience. I mean, it was it was very talked about. I mean, you know, we were very, very deliberate talking about the Trinity, you know, God, the Father, Jesus, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I mean, we were like, that was something I was taught. Early on. So, so it was very, it was definitely talked about, but, but you're right.

As far as like this, the Holy Spirit was kind of like just this little, this little thing out there that you didn't really understand or didn't really, didn't really have a good grasp on. So yeah, it was kind of just like out there, but yeah, you're right. I mean, there were, there was a lot more talk about Jesus and a lot more talk about God and the Holy Spirit was just like attached to the Trinity, but not really defined very well, if that makes sense. Yeah.

So I would agree with what you're saying. Yeah. And it probably all depends on where you are and who is teaching you specifically as well. Well, and I think like overall, like I think denominations, when it comes to the Trinity, I think if you watch, like some of them gravitate towards aspects like, okay, so like, man, this could sound really stereotypical, but I'm just going to go there. You have your Assemblies of God, your Pentecostal movement. They talk about the Holy Spirit a lot, right?

And most of them don't talk about God the Father as much, in my experience that I've seen. And you have Presbyterians, and you have Episcopalians, and they kind of talk about God a lot. They don't talk about the Holy Spirit a lot. And then you have good only Baptists like us.

I think Baptists can be the same. like we talk about Jesus the most that's kind of where our emphasis is and just running in those circles maybe maybe that's something I pick up doing no I'd say I'd say you're probably right you know and so and that doesn't be like you like, talked about the Trinity, talked about, you know, all those things, but like most of the sermons are about Jesus, the life of Jesus. We put a special emphasis.

Even, even if you listen, when we do our vows, you know, we say, you know, will you live your life by the rule as the new Testament, as your rule of faith and practice with an emphasis on the teachings of Jesus?

I don't use the word emphasis in my most time because I find a little weird, but it's phrased sort of like that, you know, this is the good stuff, you know, but, you know, other, other people, people who might be listening to this might be like, okay, literally you're talking about the Trinity, God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, the three in one, like, yeah, you're talking about, right. You're just picking one of the three over the other, like how much,

what, what difference does that really make? You know, that's, that's, that's debatable.

Right. Right. Yeah. And especially, you know, like for those, you know, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it, it's splitting hairs but at the same time like you could you i think it could be it could be possible to live your whole life in the anabaptist faith and never really understand the holy spirit the holy spirit the ministry of the holy spirit if you're only viewing it through an anabaptist lens might be a good way of it i i i would say i guess i can't i can't really say but i.

I would say you're probably right. I just can't really grasp it because of experiencing the spirit moving. Absolutely. Like, you know, I can't imagine that not being real to me. You know what I'm saying? So I have a hard time with that. But, yeah, I'm sure you're right.

And, I mean, we just, like, I think overall, like, we live in a world where, man, that Anabaptist voice, think about, like, just all the conflict in the world. like if we got the peacemaking thing right, if we got that right, like, man, the world needs that. Absolutely. The world needs that, you know, it needs a lot, you know? And if we, if we could really get that right, man, we could be doing some real, like real life changing stuff in the world around us. And.

You know, that that would be an amazing way of of of talking about human life and the value. Like when we're talking about, you know, again, whether it's war or if it's abortion or it's death penalty stuff or it's even a hot button telling immigration. Like if we get our peace position right and the dignity of human life, man, Anabaptism has something really important to say.

And but when satan gets a hold of people uh-huh then if he if he can if he can get if he can get rid of the peace within the people in the church then he knows that they're not going to be able to move forward the peace outside of the church absolutely and that is what that is what we're facing in, I mean, have been for many years, forever. Absolutely. But especially, it sounds like a broken record, but especially in today's world. Yeah. You know, people have been saying that for 7,500 years,

but you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very interesting. The other thing to think about, we talked about this a little bit with the community thing. So earlier this week, I was talking to somebody about, you know, just church planting and church logistics and stuff like that. And they were like, have you ever thought about doing a small group ministry?

And we were talking about all the ins and outs of that. And I laughed and I was like, well, you understand like small group ministry is kind of an Anabaptist thing, but that's actually, we invented small group. We were small groups for small groups for cool.

Okay. And they were laughing. I was like, no, seriously, like if you go back and look in history, like even like when, so when brethren came to the United States many, many years ago now, most of their homes were built in a way that you could have church in your house every week. They didn't have sanctuaries and they didn't, they didn't build churches. Even like some had like walls that you could like pivot and, to make a bigger space for when you had church. Okay, cool.

And I don't know if, I just know that for brethren, I don't know about Mennonites. And so like the idea of like the small group model of church is like, that's actually, we were doing that long before, long before the non-denominationals were doing it. You know, we did it, but, and just that, like the thing of doing life together. Yes. You know, that has been, you know, that is integral to what we stand for. I mean, people want to belong.

People want to belong. And man, we could, you know, that's in our, the family. And I think, I think we've talked about it before, like with all the busyness in the world today and all the, all the things to take your time and take your attention. People, people are, people are looking for something in all of that. Like, let's do this one more thing to try to get what we're missing. Let's do this one more thing to try to fill this hole.

But really the hole that they're that they're trying to fill is with a community of believers yeah and a lot of people don't don't really know that that's that that's what's what's missing yeah so yeah i think you're right as far as that goes yeah the small group thing and doing life together yeah i know i know i would say a majority of the people who listen to our podcast that i know, they're anabaptist and i would say to them if you're listening to this like speak loudly the world

needs your voice yeah right it's okay we in in traditionally especially now like anabaptism is not the the biggest i mean we laugh one time we looked up like there were more southern baptist congregations in the state of texas than there were brethren congregations in the united states oh wow you know we are a minority and again we don't feel that because we're kind of in the most densely populated area.

But the Anabaptist voice in the United States, especially is a small part of, of, of the conversation, but we need to be louder and we, we need to be sharing those things because there's a valuable insight that brethren have to offer or Anabaptists have to offer. And so if you're listening to this and you're Anabaptist, speak up, you know, be that, be that person who, who, who, who brings these things to the table because our world does need it. Absolutely. Absolutely.

World also needs more March Madness. And I'm going to contribute to that here in just a moment. I plan on it as well. It's been fun, buddy. Hey, it's been great. Time has flown by this evening. It has. You don't want to miss next week? No. Tune back in. Dun, dun, dun. We have to decide which one of the two we're going to do first. Oh, we're going with the Virginia one first. Okay, all right, all right. Sorry. All right. Cool.

To think about and apply to your walk with Christ. If you enjoyed the conversation, the best way you can support the show is to share, like, and comment wherever you listen to your podcasts. And don't forget to connect with us. You can find us on Facebook or TikTok by social media.