My wife Hannah and I spent ten years as part of a Mennonite worship community in Seattle. We started our family there. I learned some things along the way.

Potlucks – Oh man, the potlucks. Every manner of fruit, grain, vegetable, and salmon variety from the bounty of the Pacific Northwest. Many of our churchmates came from farm country and many had lived overseas, combining Midwestern ingenuity with cosmopolitan curiosity of flavors. It was awesome, if a bit heavy on lentil salads. It’s worth getting to know the Mennonites for their cookbooks alone.

Harmonies – Soaring-intricate four-part harmonies filled our worship space every Sunday morning. They seemed to come naturally, but I’d see mothers leaning over hymnals to guide their children, so I knew it took practice. I never got anywhere close to the hang of it, casting about for the melody instead. Jesus Christ is calling, calling in the streets, we sang. “Who will join my journey? I will guide their feet.”*

Steel wheels – There are something like 16 orders of Amish and Mennonites, each with particular rules about technology, as a friend from Kansas explained to me. Some groups won’t use tractors. Some use only tractors with steel wheels, so they can’t be driven into town on Saturday night. At root is the question of how worldly to be. The Mennonites in Seattle are thoroughly modern—iPhone early adopters, professional jobs, streamers of European football, etc.

Neighborhood – Our church met in the Lake City neighborhood, as close to working-class as North Seattle gets in the age of Amazon and astronomical tech wealth. Car dealerships and drive-through espresso stands. Lakefront property and public housing. We met in a converted movie theater. We ran a day center for unhoused neighbors. Occasionally a neighbor in crisis disrupted Sunday morning services, and the way our worship leaders responded — patiently, tenderly — spoke volumes.

History – Our Mennonite friends came from several ethnic backgrounds — Swiss-German, Low German, Russian — with histories of persecution and emigration to Pennsylvania, Virginia, Canadian prairie provinces, elsewhere. I never got it all straight. There are cultural histories and generational traumas I never fully grasped. They were completely welcoming regardless. The rest of us came with every manner of religious and nonreligious backstory, including more than a few of us with Christian Reformed roots, drawn to the Mennonite ethic of peacemaking, community, and social action.

Blood on the plaza – On a drizzly Good Friday morning, outside a federal office building downtown, a group of our churchmates read John’s account of Jesus entering Jerusalem to confront the political powers. With a call of “drone strike!” they smeared themselves in symbolic blood and fell to the ground in witness against American drones terrorizing communities in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Adults hurried past pretending not to see. One child exclaimed “That guy is dead!” I stayed home with our infant son, reflecting on my own anger at my country’s warmaking.

War taxes – At study hour we learned about the Anabaptist tradition of war tax resistance. Some practitioners keep their income below federally taxable levels to avoid contributing to state violence. Some withhold the telephone excise tax, a small but specific tax passed in 1898 to fund the Spanish–American War. Many of us do nothing. I know of no Christian tradition who takes the gospel call to peacemaking as seriously as the Mennonites.

Pub nights – For years I struggled with a logjam of questions about home, family, career, and direction. It felt interminably stuck. There were particular conversations with church friends, sometimes after long bike rides through our glittering, unaffordable city, that were instrumental in opening up a measure of clarity. The ales were delicious, but you can get those anywhere. The conversations with dear friends were unforgettable.

Quilts – When our firstborn arrived, our pastor draped him in a glorious quilt of city shapes in reds, oranges, blues, and greens, speaking words of blessing to our family. When our second son arrived, she carried him around as our congregation extended their promise to care for him. I reflected on the difference between Reformed infant baptism and Anabaptist infant dedication, concluding that they are more alike than different, both signs of God’s covenant and a community’s care for its people. The quilt still hangs in our boys’ bedroom.

Sacrament – Our church took hospitality seriously, making it clear that all are welcome at the communion table, trying out gluten-free bread recipes (not all of them successful!) and non-alcoholic wine, rearranging our worship space for accessibility. I never tired of walking up front with a newborn in my arm or a toddler grasping my hand to receive a blessing. Here in this world, dying and living, we are each other’s bread and wine, we sang.**

The rest – Is there more to the story? Yes, of course, there always is. There was conflict, same as any church. There were national gatherings with strife over sexuality and policy and fading support for institutional ministries. There were the ever-present pressures of housing costs and urban inequality and busy modern lives. And my particular experience was just that — my own.

The center – Together we waited for, listened for, longed for Jesus, whose name is peace. It was utterly ordinary, stuff that happens unnoticed all around the world all the time. And yet it matters more than I have words to say.

* “Jesus Christ is waiting,” John L. Bell and Graham Maule, in Sing the Journey (Mennonite Publishing Network, 2005)

** “What is this place,” Huub Oosterhuis, in Hymnal: A Worship Book (Brethren Press, 1992) 

Plaza/drone photo courtesy Ken Kraybill