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| Emily: So what do you do? Eric: Well, in our church’s history there have been times where we couldn’t agree. For example, in the late 1800’s there was a disagreement about whether to allow four-part singing in the Mennonite church. In the end, four-part singing was integrated into worship. Congregations that were opposed to this either accepted the change or left the Mennonite denomination. Emily: Hmm, that’s interesting, but you keep talking about Anabaptists and Mennonites. Who are they? Eric: Well, back in the day when Luther and those other guys had broken off from the Catholic Church they made a lot of changes in the church. This was called the Reformation. Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz, and others didn’t think that the reformation did enough changing. They were not content with some of the things that the church was still doing so they split off again and began another movement. They wanted a self-governing church; one that wasn’t connected to the government. One of the biggest changes they made was to not baptize infants and instead baptize adult believers. Emily: Why did they change that? Eric: They wanted baptism to be a symbol of a choice someone had made to follow Christ. We also get the name Anabaptist, which means rebaptizer, because of this change. We try to make it so the things we do in youth group reflect our Anabaptist beliefs. Emily: Like what else? Eric: Well, we recognize the Bible as God’s word to us. It is where we find God’s truth and God’s expectations for how we live our lives. Continued... |
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