Jon Carlson, moderator for Mennonite Church USA, shares his story of how he came to call the Mennonite church home the family-like belonging that has felt since joining this church.
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Jon Carlson serves as the lead pastor of Forest Hills Mennonite Church, in Leola, Pennsylvania, and moderator of Mennonite Church USA. He holds a Master of Divinity from Eastern Mennonite Seminary. As a somewhat reluctant Millennial, Jon is fascinated by the intersections of faith, culture, technology and tradition. He and his wife, Lyn, are raising three children in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. When he’s not chauffeuring the kids around, Jon enjoys a good cup of espresso, a dense book or a long-distance run.
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“Are you sure you’re really Mennonite?” I was leading a series of Bible studies for adults and families at a week-long summer camp, and one of the participants seemed a little confused by my self-professed theological identity. “I don’t know much about Mennonites,” she continued, “but it seems like it usually involves horses and buggies and bonnets. And I don’t see any horses.”
Having lived in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for nearly a decade, I’ve gotten fairly proficient at articulating the nuances that differentiate the myriad of Anabaptist groups who call this place home. I walked my new friend through the ways someone could be Mennonite without being that kind of Mennonite. As I explained it, I left unspoken the fact that part of me that remains amazed that I claim the label “Mennonite” at all — or that Mennonites claim me.
I didn’t grow up in the tradition. Both of my parents were committed Christians, but they floated in streams far removed from Anabaptism, from the Catholicism of my father’s upbringing to their journey through evangelical fundamentalism into neo-Pentecostalism and beyond. They were deeply and sincerely spiritual, yet that didn’t resolve the profound mental health challenges they both faced. Together and separately, both of my parents contributed to a household environment of pervasive instability, neglect and abuse.
When I was eight years old, Children and Youth Services determined that my parents were unfit and unsafe. My three siblings and I were removed from the home and placed into foster care. I ping-ponged around the system for the next five years, living with extended family, friends, foster parents and the occasional trial visit of staying with my parents. By the time I was returned to my biological parents’ custody as a teenager, I was desperate for stability, belonging and a sense of family. Although my parents had made some progress in their own journeys, all that I longed for remained beyond their reach.
At the recommendation of someone at my parents’ church, I started volunteering at a local public-access Christian cable television station, not knowing it had been started as an innovative evangelistic program of a local Mennonite church. Over time, this volunteer gig morphed into an invitation to join the youth group of the church that had founded the television station.
I had no clue what the term “Mennonite” meant; I doubt I could have even come up with the “horses and buggies and bonnets” part of it. But I knew I felt a sense of belonging and welcome, a generous hospitality that didn’t dwell on my complex family life or make me feel like too much of an outsider.
Even as I started to feel like I was part of the group, I wouldn’t have thought of myself as a “Mennonite.” I couldn’t have told you a single “Anabaptist distinctive.” The youth group knew how to have fun, though, and they also took their Christian faith seriously in a way I found deeply appealing.
I joined the Bible Quizzing team and spent a few months reading through the Gospel of Matthew in granular detail. It might have been the first time I engaged seriously with the teachings of Jesus. I began to have meaningful conversations with both peers and adults about ethics, theology and biblical interpretation. I still spent most Sunday mornings at my parents’ charismatic church, but I found myself identifying more and more with the peculiar claims of Anabaptism.
What crystallized my movement from “someone who hangs out with some Mennonites” to “a Mennonite” was September 11, 2001, and its aftermath. Even as a teenager, I recognized the dangerous disconnect between the rhetoric I heard from some Christians, as the nation marched to war — angry, self-righteous, violent and bloodthirsty — and the example of Jesus I had so carefully studied in Matthew’s Gospel — meek, humble, forgiving and peaceful.
Anabaptism, with its rich history of peaceful practice and theology, offered a vision of how Christians might faithfully follow Jesus. Refusing to repay evil for evil seemed to me to be the only viable offramp from an ever-escalating cycle of violence and counterviolence.
It would be another three or four years before I fully embraced the Anabaptist tradition by becoming a member of a Mennonite church. As I did, I started to recognize that our commitment to Jesus’ ways isn’t as consistent or congruent as we wish it would be. We often aren’t peaceable with one another, slow to practice forgiveness or act with humility. Yet the core insight remains: Jesus invites us to follow him and empowers us to do so.
I understand why we sometimes shy away from language of “family” to talk about our shared life, given how problematic our insularity has been at times. For me, though, familial language is more than just a metaphor; it’s a lived experience. The Mennonite church has offered me a sense of safety and belonging — maybe even “home” — as we, together, continually work out what it means to follow Jesus in daily life. Twenty years in, I’m sure I’m really Mennonite, even if it still sometimes surprises me.
The views and opinions expressed in this blog belong to the author and are not intended to represent the views of the MC USA Executive Board or staff.
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