The Beachy Amish Mennonites   

Mennonites   

Beachy Ministers’ Meeting 2010

The Beachy Amish Mennonites hold an annual three-day meeting of the constituency’s ministers to share in fellowship and exchange ideas, receive reports from Beachy agencies, and vote on constituency decisions if any are brought forward. Unlike a strong-knit conference or hierarchical denomination, the Beachys are a lose stitching of churches and therefore do not hand down administrative decisions applicable to all congregations. While two business meetings allow agencies to communicate with the constituency and vote on one or two, if any, policies or new board members, most of the meeting time is devoted to assigned sermons.

 

· The 2009 meeting was held in Sarasota, Florida. (see meeting page)

· The 2010 meeting in April was held in Goshen, Indiana.

· The 2011 meeting will be held in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

 

 

Eighty-five years in God’s service: June 26, 1927 — 2012

Content from the 2010 Beachy Ministers’ Meeting

The Fair Haven A.M.  & Woodlawn A.M. congregations hosted the meetings at the Fair Haven A.M. church, with assistance from area Beachy churches. Bishop Wilbur Yoder (Fair Haven) was the primary coordinator, and Fair Haven members maintained the facilities/refreshments. The meeting attendance was slightly less than last year, attracting around 400 ministers and wives during daytime sessions. Committees met starting on Monday and continued through Thursday. Nine ministers presented messages and three gave evening devotionals. Breaking from past precedent, the hosts chose to have mixed seating during services. Victory Music Services, including Lavern Yoder and Uve Steinmann, replaced SON Recordings in producing sound media for the event. Tim Miller presented the bishop committee statement, opening a gate to future discussions about the increasing gap of ideology and practice within the constituency.

 

Documents for download

· COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING (including messages, business meetings, and miscellaneous material)

· Official Business Meeting Minutes

· Bishop Committee Statement

· Meeting Brochure

· AMA policy about hostage/ransoms

· Transcripts are available for each speakers via links on each name:

· RECORDINGS are available via Anabaptist Sermons (external link)  or CDs via Lavern Yoder

Covering Styles

for Ministers’ Wives

 

A tally was taken of women’s covering style. The counts were taken as people entered the sanctuary for a daytime session when practically all present were ministers’ wives. The tally demonstrates that a strong majority of the constituency’s leaders’ wives have chosen to wear the traditional Beachy covering over cloth styles.

Traditional Covering

Cloth styles (hanging veil/doilies, etc.)

Ken Miller of Virginia sharing The Essence of Salvation. “I believe that one of the primary reasons that we are caving in to the culture and the reason we are losing identity is because of a fundamental misunderstanding of what it is to be saved, a misunderstanding of salvation. I do not believe we can borrow as much from the other gospel as we have without losing something.”

Earl Peachy of Pennsylvania preaching The Heart of the Father. “There was an intimate way Adam and Eve were created. He formed him with His hands… he breathed into his nostrils.”

Tim Yoder of Maryland preaching The Call of the Father. “It is God and only God that looks into the heart of man and chooses whom he wants for that particular time. It’s the human manipulation that must be eliminated in any ordination for leadership.”

Monroe Gingerich of Iowa sharing an evening devotional. “We’re alive physically here today. We need to be alive physically before spiritually. The alternative to life is death. The alternative of a spiritual life is spiritual death.”

Eli Troyer of Virginia sharing about The Servant Leader. “If we look at our people like a business, we’re going to look for problems when we go through the motions, ‘let’s have Sunday night service, let’s have communion.’ If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature.”

Ben Stoltzfus of Pennsylvania preaching The Vibrant, Active Brotherhood. “How are we going to respond if God does send us chastisement and rebuke? Way too often we reply by getting angry. We respond by suggesting, ‘I don’t deserve this sort of brother!’ In fact, we might deserve what God has given us.”

Elmer Glick of West Virginia preaching The Way of Peace. “If we are not more than a Protestant church with a few distinctives, then I believe we are in danger of becoming extinct... We are unique in 2010 as peace churches in that we believe when Jesus spoke the words on the Sermon of the Mount, he meant what he said and he wants us to live it.”

John Nisley of Pennsylvania discusses The Great Commission. “Severe persecution or no persecution can be detrimental. Prosperity can be detrimental, but I don’t believe this to be the underlying problem. Once we move away from the fear of the Lord and the Holy Ghost, we begin to diminish. Here it says, God is a God of multiplication.”

James Shetler of Kansas shares an evening devotional. “One of the greatest responsibilities we have is to influence people. Leadership is influence. God has called each of us to inspire enthusiasm in the hearts of the people under us… When we try to impress people, it begins and ends with me... When we try to impress people, we’re controlled by feelings that are unreliable and subject to change… God is deprived of an opportunity to receive glory.”

Lonnie Beachy of Ohio spoke about The Diligent Workman. “That little GPS, the Bible, rightly applied, works. It is not silent, it speaks directions, directives, instructions… Be diligent and run the race with patience. Don’t run the race with impatience. Keep running what is set before.”

Facts and Figures

During one daytime session, ministers and their wives were counted as they entered the sanctuary, including service leaders and partition seating areas. The attendance was:

 

                 222 MEN               189 WOMEN       406 TOTAL

 

The Ministers’ Meeting Directory reported 437 ministers and ministers’ wives in attendance. The hosts did an excellent job compiling correct, up-to-date information, removing most discrepancies from previous years, as evident in the table below.

Bill Yoder of Florida sharing The Pastor’s Home. “The thing that brings the most fulfillment in life is the thing we give the greatest effort to… Is it status, a heart to reach out to the people, our families, our business? We can have a wrong motive in everything we do.”

An unseen face from afar listens to the singing