Fireplaces and a Warm Meal

One of my closest pastoral friends was Jack McClelland, pastor of Fredericksburg Presbyterian Church in Ohio. We served in the same small town and met together several times a month to pray, chat about ministry life, and enjoy the friendship of two brothers ministering in the same community. Jack’s church baptized babies, celebrated believers joining the military, and ordained women—all ways of practicing the faith that would have made it difficult, if not impossible, for us to pastor the same church together. And yet, we were brothers in Christ and close friends. 

My history with the Presbyterian church didn’t begin with Jack. After attending Rosedale Bible College (RBC), I transferred to a small liberal arts Presbyterian college where all my theology professors were conservative Presbyterians. Furthermore, my first preaching role was in a small-town Presbyterian church in Kansas while I was still in college. The head elder, a crusty Kansas farmer, knew I was Mennonite and informed me that the church was happy to have me and that I could preach what I wanted, but I needed to know there wasn’t anything they hadn’t heard before. “One other thing,” he added, “don’t go talking about the environment.” Noted.

After years of interaction with theologically conservative, reformed Presbyterians, I developed a deep appreciation for their church. I appreciated their model of church governance, the way they valued doctrine, and the ability of their pastors to teach the Bible. It seemed to me that every Presbyterian was a capable teacher! Yet, for all my Presbyterian engagement and admiration, I’m not Presbyterian or reformed and would not be ordained in their denomination. Why?

Several years into my pastorate at Mennonite Christian Assembly in Fredericksburg, Ohio, a group of young people asked me to do a series of teachings on what it meant to be Mennonite. “Who are we?” they asked. Ironically, our church was located in the heart of Ohio’s Amish country, an Anabaptist Mecca. And still, many of our young people had no idea what a Mennonite was. They were skeptical of denominational labels, unsure of how we were fundamentally different from most other churches in the area. They questioned the value of denominations in general. Didn’t denominational labels just create barriers between Christians who were essentially the same? 

This denominational skepticism isn’t limited to that group of young people. Rather, they were reflective of a broader movement over the last 40 years toward a non-denominational church identity. According to Professor Ryan Burge’s data from 2020, 22% of U.S. Protestants identify as non-denominational, making it the largest “denomination.” For comparison, in 1984, only 5% of Protestants were non-denominational. 

What is this shift about? There are a variety of reasons for the growth of non-denominational churches, not least of which is an American culture that is increasingly anti-institutional. In a post-modern culture where individuals create their own truths, institutions are met with significant suspicion. Much more could be said about this important reality.

Beyond this, many churches want greater autonomy and flexibility with their missional goals. They don’t want to be saddled with baggage from a particular denomination’s past or present unpopular theology or practices. Also, many Christians don’t want labels or boxes and believe that if we all were serious enough about our faith and the Bible, we would all come to the same conclusions without external entities insisting on particular beliefs and practices.  

In his powerful work, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis explained the value of denominations. He likened coming to faith to entering a large home. First, you enter the hallway where people mingle and have much in common with one another. The conversations are light and pleasant. The hallway symbolized the unifying foundational truths that all Christians believe. 

However, Lewis notes, “The hall is a place to wait in, not live in.” All believers eventually must enter one of the rooms where “there are fires, and chairs, and meals.” The rooms represent different layers of belief, culture, and shared commitments, a working out of salvation God has given His people. These rooms with food, fire, and chairs are where we learn the deep truths of God and develop convictions that facilitate intimate fellowship for the journey with God and His people. 

I can appreciate the frustrations that sometimes come with deep ties to a particular room in the household of God. Despite these tensions, the truth is that Christianity is a received faith. We are all products of faithful streams of church life that have flowed out of the empty tomb through the church and down through the centuries by the power of the Spirit. It’s in the rooms that we learn how the gospel message has been transmitted down through the centuries, carried by traditions, stewarded by church authority, and cultivated into the lives of God’s people through centuries of discipleship practices. The stream of faithfulness that has brought us the gospel of Christ included a serious reformation 500 years ago by a group called Anabaptists. They were not without fault, but they showed us Jesus, and we are products of their faithfulness. 

This year, on the 500th anniversary of the founding of the Anabaptist movement, RBC’s articles will crack open the doors of other rooms and examine various denominations in God’s household. Our aim is to help us understand our own room, learn from other denominations, and embrace the gospel our Anabaptist forebearers entrusted to us. We hope to foster a humble, rooted, appreciation for how the gospel has come to us and to consider how Jesus might be calling us forward.