Mennonite

Mennonite

Our Anabaptist Roots

New Creation Fellowship Church has its roots in the 16th century, the time of the Protestant Reformation. In the book Prairie People: A History of the Western District Conference, David Haury writes, "The Protestant Reformation gained its impetus from a vigorous desire to reform the Catholic church.... The reform movements of Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin sought to overcome the corruption and worldliness of the church."

Our spiritual ancestors, called the "Anabaptists, " (people who baptize again) ...agreed with these Protestant reformers in many respects, but they also desired more thorough changes." The leader of the first Anabaptists (more properly known as Swiss Brethren) was Conrad Grebel. He and several others were eager to institute the reform called ‘believer’s baptism’, replacing the baptism of children. Debates with the Catholic Church leaders were heated and eventually led to the city of Zurich’s religious and political leaders issuing a decree that all unbaptized children were to be baptized within 8 days, and all small Bible study groups were to be disbanded.

On January 21, 1525, "Grebel, Felix Manz, Georg Blaurock, Wilhelm Reublin and about a dozen others met for prayer and study in defiance of the Council’s order. During this intense session Blaurock asked Grebel to baptize him. Grebel, though not a priest, complied with the request, and Blaurock then baptized the others who were present."

Word got around and "Grebel, Blaurock, Manz, and other other leaders were soon imprisoned." Manz refused to recant or change his position and was drowned on January 5, 1527. "Others met the same fate of martyrdom. ... In spite of the adversity, Anabaptism spread rapidly," including to the Netherlands. Here a Dutch priest named Menno Simons came to believe strongly in the reformations of the Anabaptists. Though some extremist Anabaptists of his day were turned to violence, Menno "sought to shepherd the Anabaptists in a peaceful direction. He spent the final two decades of his life visiting, counseling, and baptizing small groups...who soon were called Menists or Mennonites. Although a fugitive with a price on his head, Menno avoided the bloody and relentless persecution."

The main tenets of the Anabaptist faith left to us by Menno and his followers include:

community: People are baptized upon confession of faith into a discipling, nurturing congregation
nonconformity: being citizens of the Kingdom of God, not of Satan or the World
nonviolence: resisting violence in personal and national life
evangelical mission: spreading the good news of Jesus, including this fourfold witness, through word and deed.

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