Download PDF by Rachel Nafziger Hartzler: No Strings Attached: Boundary Lines in Pleasant Places: A

No Strings Attached is the tale of a Mennonite congregation in Indiana that existed for eighty-six years. The congregation all started through the social and spiritual turmoil of the Nineteen Twenties while a few Mennonites in North the United States held to inflexible doctrines and ethics applied through imperative authority, and others operated with a congregational polity and have become extra assimilated into secular tradition. The fight among those diversified understandings of faithfulness used to be such a lot passionately performed out in northern Indiana.

Placing the narrative of this congregation in the context of 500 years of Mennonite background illustrates the grace and the stress that has either beset and empowered a different workforce of people that all started as radical reformers.

Although “no strings hooked up” refers back to the women’s headwear throughout the Nineteen Twenties, which had no strings, it may well even be the tale of the pastor consuming lunch at the top of the steep roof of the church development! Reflecting on tales of those Mennonite humans is a call for participation to maneuver into the long run with brave wish. Believing and behaving otherwise has no longer avoided Middlebury Mennonites from treating one another respectfully, residing in a group of affection, pleasure, and peace, and supplying God’s therapeutic and desire to one another and to the world.

“Few congregational histories give you the theological and cultural context in their tale. This booklet is a notable exception! it truly is set in post-World struggle I northern Indiana, the main major atmosphere for the fight among culture and innovation between Mennonites within the usa at the moment. . . . This publication is a revealing retelling of the struggles, goals, and personalities that made friendly Oaks Mennonite Church a devoted neighborhood of Christ.”
—John D. Rempel, Director, Toronto Mennonite Theological Centre

“No Strings Attached is an engaging tale of department inside of one congregation instructed opposed to the backdrop of tumultuous clash in the broader Mennonite church. Hartzler recounts how that department performed itself out and chronicles the gracious technique of discernment that ended in reconciliation and reunion eighty-six years later. This e-book places present-day conflicts in standpoint and explores issues of authority, communal discernment, and nonconformity, that are as appropriate at the present time as they have been then.”
—Andre Gingerich Stoner, Director of Interchurch kin, Director of Holistic Witness, Mennonite Church USA

“Fascinating! This tale weaves jointly a specific church clash with the ancient context of the Mennonite Midwest within the Twenties. No Strings connected invitations us to know extra totally the layers underlying church conflicts, then and this day. Our love for God compels us to proceed the paintings of discerning obstacles round necessities and freedom in nonessentials, to have strings connected or now not. This booklet is an encouragement in that onerous and holy conversation.”
—Lois Johns Kaufmann, convention Minister, primary District convention of Mennonite Church USA

Rachel Nafziger Hartzler is a mom, grandmother, nurse, and ordained minister in Mennonite Church united states. She was once the final pastor of friendly Oaks Mennonite Church. She at present lives in Indiana and works as a religious director and retreat chief. She is the writer of Grief and Sexuality: existence After wasting a Spouse (2006) and Nurturing fit Sexuality at domestic: A consultant for Parents (2010).