You know, in reading here the past week, I have been struck by several thoughts. I don't want to try to sort out and paste over the comments so I am just going to jumble them down here and hope you make a little sense out of them. I am trying to get a little help from H members here...

With the comments that have been made about Sunday School being stuffy and uninspiring; especially the men's classes: Why is it so much that way? I have heard this a lot that the men's discussions lean toward legalism. Why? How are we women supposed to have all this confidence in the men being the leaders in the church when it is heard quite often how dry their discussions are? Where's the life that should be present?

Another thing I have been wondering about. I hear this over and over "how good it felt to be together in church today" and how could you ever be tempted to leave that...
My question is: What does that "feel good" feeling come from? Are we too quick (or is it too comfortable) to say it's the Spirit flowing? That's sure what a lot are determined to believe and I'm sure in some cases that happens, but...isn't there a possibility that the feeling gets mistaken for this: It feels comfortable and is easy to get together with people whom you know well and who think like you do and have a form that you have down pat and it feels safe to fit right in and have your little spot all carved out?

I sat through four years of Holdeman Sunday School classes over on the women's side. It was a rare Sunday when we ladies made any sense of the lesson as presented in their SS book and rarer still when anything thoughtful was discussed. In those four years I also attended one Bible Study and found it equally as shallow. Being now in another Mennonite church and having taken part in seven years of their SS classes, I am assured that here are a thinking people who are not afraid to be challenged, ask questions, and dive deeper into the Scriptures for answers. I wonder: when we have all the answers, are assured that we have the only right way, are assured of salvation, are there any questions to be asked? Perhaps that is what is the problem with Holdeman Sunday School.
You wrote >>It feels comfortable and is easy to get together with people whom you know well and who think like you do and have a form that you have down pat and it feels safe to fit right in and have your little spot all carved out? <<
Just like a family. (Only a family isn't going to expel you and shun you, so you don't generally live in fear, but in peace and security.)

When christianity becomes an outward way of life, it is totally boring. The reason Sunday School discussions are dead and lifeles is because the participants are totally bored.
True spiritual happiness and excitment comes from within. If the heart is alive to the blessings of a close walk with God, it cannot be hidden. Conversly, it cannot be faked.

They aren't allowed to speak their heart. the staff is sitting there and if they don't speak the party line, they have a visit that week by the ordained god in the flesh. SO no questions can be asked, and especially answered if they aren't party line protocol.

Of course the class is dead under those rules, better to just stay home, and repeat "the church is right, the church is right" a couple of times and save the effort of going to class

If there is not liberty to question the status quo (and there is not), then the very idea of Sunday school for adults becomes an absurd thought.

"how good it felt to be together in church today"


I think this can be summed up that we are relational creatures. We love to be arround people who we feel love us. I don't think it is so much the fact that it felt good to be in the presence of the Holy Spirit as it is to be in the presence of our friends.

I don't think a shunned person would say "how good it felt to be together".

I hear people say the same thing when they go to family reunions "it felt good to be together". I hear it on the golf course, when fishing with friends, and etc.

For people to think that the Holy Spirit only shows up inside the walls of a building shows they don't understand where the Spirit dwells. I constantly throughout the day just tell the Holy Spirit that I love being in His/Her(?) presence. I know that "church" happens for me outside the walls of a building. I also know that if I walk into a building I take it with me. I don't go "to" a church to find it.



Just my 2 cents.

"how good it felt to be together in church today" ...

It is sad how much of the H guage a lot of their associations by feelings... even though the H say feelings are not as safe as facts. But the reality is that they relish in feeling secure in their own little world, "knowing" they are the chosen ones...
How many of them would be able to truly testify to more than just a good feeling... tell the real reason for getting up every day, (besides work, or the duty of appearing in church - to save face)... that they are reminded of God in every day things, such as nature all around them, that they are excited about what they believe in, and for sure KNOW what they believe in... what they hold dear to them...
besides what they get told every Sunday, or their private visits by the higher powers that be... If they would be asked face to face, how many absolutely know what they believe? why they are - who they are, for the REAL reason?