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FARMING IN THE CITY

Daniel Hertzler

Taking Root in Strange Soil: Hyattsville Mennonite Church 1952-2002, by Gene C. Miller. Hyattsville Mennonite Church, 2005.

This is a congregational history and as such is a view from the inside. If the author at times presents the Hyattsville people as besieged by a variety of outside froces, that is no doubt how it felt. As one who grew up in rural northern Pennsylvania, he has chosen an agricultural metaphor, one which implies difficulties. Let the reader take note.

His thesis is stated at the beginning: The urban context has not been a friendly place to practice the Mennonite faith. Drawing from Paul Peachey’s The Church in the City (Faith and Life Press, 1963) Miller finds four issues pressing American Mennonites to stay in the country: (1) persecution of Anabaptists in Europe; (2) farming experience on the American frontier; (3) ethnic barriers; (4) a theology which divided sharply between the church and the world (p. 3).

Yet some Mennonites did move to the city, and Miller traces the origin of the Hyattsville Mennonite Church to Henry Brunk, a Mennonite farmer in Virginia whose potatoes rotted in the field during an unusually wet summer. He would look for something else to do and his solution was to move to the city.

As I reflect on the book, I perceive that the author does not apply his metaphor directly, but it broods over his account and provides a perspective which the reader can return to now and then. Another metaphor he might have used would be a journey, even Pilgrim’s Progress with repeated sidetrips to the Slough of Despond. But I think his metaphor serves him well enough.

There was no Mennonite church in the Washington area when Henry Brunk moved to town, so he and some friends cast about to see which Mennonite district conference would provide financial support for the organization of a Mennonite "mission." As it happened, their own Virginia Conference had its finances tied up with other projects, but Lancaster Mennonite Conference came forth and the Cottage City Mennonite Church began its ministry in 1929. Henry Brunk had donated the land on which the meeting house was built.

As members of Lancaster Mennonite Conference, Cottage City Mennonites were expected to follow traditional Mennonite practices, including such countercultural symbols as devotional veilings for women and plain coats for men. The pastor was particularly loyal to these practices.

But a dozen years after Cottage City’s beginning came World War II, which brought influences Cottage City had difficulty absorbing. For one thing, young men from the congregation went away as draftees in Civilian Public Service and returned with modified perspectives. For another, after the war Mennonites from other traditions came to Washington to represent the church in relation to issues involving the government. Cottage City was not able to absorb these persons unless they would adopt its traditional practices.

A crisis developed when Henry Brunk’s son Nelson, who had been Sunday school superintendent, declined to continue wearing a plain coat. He could no longer serve as superintendent, and he and his wife and several other persons found themselves marginalized in the congregation. In December 1951, nine persons met separately to consider where to go from there. This was the beginning of what would become Hyattsville Mennonite Church.

This would not be a "mission." That is, they would not ask for financial support. But they would seek to affiliate with a Mennonite district conference, one more "flexible" than what they had found at Cottage City. As one reviews the record in the Miller book, one finds this congregation wrestling with a variety of issues: (1) how to deal with Mennonite boundaries which highlighted the division between the church in the world; (2) how to maintain a vital congregational fellowship involving professional people with demanding schedules and residences scattered throughout the greater Washington area; (3) how to achieve a balance between lay and professional leadership; (4) how to find a place for meeting.

The first issue they seem to have handled by gradually sloughing off practices which did not seem to fit their context: distinctive clothing, closed communion, even the ritualized washing of one another’s feet, a practice which Mennonites have shared with the Church of the Brethren and the Churches of God. (Numbers of other Mennonite congregations have followed a similar pattern but perhaps on a more extended schedule).

The fourth issue was resolved in 1959, with the purchase of a lot and the erection of a meeting house at a cost of $62,016.21. The second and third issues have been subjects for ongoing congregational agenda.

In the meantime the young congregation would look for a district conference home and found it with the Southwestern Pennsylvania Mennonite Conference (later to be named Allegheny Mennonite Conference). Miller observes that "The Southwestern Pennsylvania group offered a conference affiliation that was more collegial than authoritarian. There was no board of bishops that would dictate to Georgetown [later Hyattsville] regarding ecclesial matters; instead there was a carefully balanced practice of consultation and conference where participants engaged each other with an eye toward discovering mutually acceptable solutions" (18-19).

Questions regarding lay and professional leadership were to occupy the congregation for at least 40 of its first 50 years. C. Nevin Miller, a faculty member at Eastern Mennonite College, served as commuting pastor from 1952 to 1956. Then John R. Martin came for three years, and finally in 1960 Kenneth Good came from Illinois to Hyattsville, where the church had just completed their new meeting house.

Good was an experienced pastor, having served Mennonite congregations in Virginia, Ohio, and Illinois. Miller reports that "Ken’s experience as administrator and motivator, combined with the fact that he was Hyattsville’s first real full-time minister, meant that he was able to take charge quickly" (38).

He stayed eleven years, but then resigned on August 1 1971, because he perceived "that his and Hyattsville’s paths were diverging." Miller observes that "Hyattsville under Ken Good was initially coalescing around the more traditional and quasi-corporate ecclesial style in which the pastor is the chief operating officer, but at the same time discovering that this corporate form did not meet its needs" (48).

When Good left, Hyattsville set out to redefine what it meant for them to be a congregation. "When in the beginning the process was experienced by all as a revitalization, in the end it nearly tore the congregation to pieces" (49). As reported by Miller, Good had perceived the loss in an urban setting of natural forces which tended to unite a rural congregation. The response was that since we "live in a city that tends to being impersonal, let us give ourselves to Christian hospitality" (53).

This plea evidently did not resonate with the congregation, and after Good left, the responsibility to fashion a different structure fell upon sociologist and Anabaptist scholar Paul Peachy. What emerged was a congregation composed of fellowship groups with a "Pastorate" made up of the heads of fellowship groups. It "was charged with the spiritual care of the congregation. If a pastoral helper or counselor (pastor) was to be appointed, he was to serve and help the Pastorate" (71).

The new model was affirmed by the congregation, but not all participants were comfortable with the subservient role assigned to a pastor. Still they looked for a pastor. At first Mark Derstine served as "Congregational Coordinator."

When he perceived that pastoring was not in his immediate future, the congregation finally found Bob Johnson, who stayed four years; followed by Bob Shreiner, who stayed another four; and Alan Moore-Beitler, who left after four and a half.

In the meantime Hyattsville had become a dual-affiliated congregation, relating to both the Mennonite Church through Allegheny Conference and the General Conference Mennonite Church. (These were eventually to merge as Mennonite Church USA.) In this context, they were able to find Mel Schmidt, a blunt-speaking Midwest native who came to them from the large First Mennonite Church in Bluffton, Ohio, beginning February 1, 1994. He stayed as pastor until his retirement in 2003.

Schmidt perceived that on his arrival Hyattsville was "‘a discouraged, burned-out congregation’" (143). One of his concerns was the revitalization of worship. He noticed that Cindy Lapp, an accomplished musician and a member at Hyattsville, was "singing professionally at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in downtown Washington" (144). He found it curious that Lapp was singing for the Episcopalians instead of the Mennonites and persuaded Hyattsville to establish a "Coordinator of Worship and Music," a part-time paid position. The eventual development was for Lapp to be licensed by Allegheny Mennonite Conference and later ordained as a minister on November 17, 2002.

The last chapter in Miller’s book is devoted to Lapp and events leading up to her ordination. She was the first pastor ordained from within the Hyattsville congregation. Miller ends the book with a benediction: "Thus, the past and the future of Hyattsville at once. Tradition enlivened by innovation, spirit imbued with grace, and with praise out of brokenness, we celebrate the body of Christ in the world in this time—1952-2002—and this place—Washington; Hyattsville—world without end" (162).

This quick survey of structural leadership issues overlooks other subjects included in the book: various mission activities of the congregation and its beginning to attract persons with other than Pennsylvania German backgrounds. Among these has been David Deal, who had received a Navy scholarship to study at Duke University. He became a conscientious objector and dropped out of the program, so he was called upon by the Navy to repay the scholarship. The congregation agreed to help him repay the debt.

Miller also goes into detail on the issue of homosexuality with an "Excursus" on the experience of Jim Derstine, who came from Pennsylvania and ended up at Hyattsville. His presence as a homosexual led the congregation to study the issue; eventually 94 percent voted to accept Derstine as a member.

In a footnote, Miller reports that Bob Schreiner, who was then pastor "had taken the matter up with the Conference Overseer, Paul Lederach, and . . . the two of them had agreed that the question of Jim’s membership was pastoral and congregational, rather than an issue for the conference" (124).

Some left Hyattsville because of Jim’s membership and others who stayed were also opposed. Other gays and lesbians have joined the congregation, and Miller reports "the Allegheny Conference has had continued concerns over Hyattsville’s views and actions" (126).

These Allegheny concerns came out more sharply after the date in which the Miller book ends. Faced with unrest brought about by the merger of the Mennonite Church and the General Conference Mennonite Church and the emerging issue of homosexual practice, Allegheny was unable to maintain the "collegial" style which had originally attracted the Hyattsville people.

Five congregations left the conference, and a majority of those who remained voted to remove Hyattsville’s official position as a voting member of the conference. Judy Nord from Hyattsville, who was a member of the Allegheny Leadership Commission, was not permitted to continue.

It appeared that some in the rural congregations felt they had been hoodwinked when Hyattsville was permitted to follow a practice which they did not approve, and it was time to call them to account. The action was not unanimous. I, for one,did not support it.

We may note on reflection that the issue of homosexual practice is one which has bedeviled most denominations, and so we’re not alone. We may note also that the question of congregational authority versus broader perspectives is never fully answered. What seems ironic is that when Hyattsville appears to have finally achieved stability in congregational leadership, its relationship to the district conference is in jeopardy.

One other issue for Hyattsville I do not see addressed by Miller is that of intergenerational membership. He reports considerable fluctuation in membership during the congregation’s 50 years and finds that Henry Jr. and Edna Brunk are the only charter members remaining. I wonder whether there are second- or third-generation members, or whether the younger people have all scattered.

Two comments about the volume itself. The book is designed as a 9 by 9 inch paperback. This makes it possible to display numerous family photographs in the margins but makes the book unwieldy. Also I found one glaring error: John Oberholtzer, the somewhat radical nineteenth-century minister in Franconia Mennonite Conference who helped to bring about a split in the conference, is identified as "Jacob."

Because he seeks to document every bump in the congregation’s path, Miller’s book may at times seem tedious to those with no background knowledge of Hyattsville. But for those who dream about what it means to be faithful in an alien context, the book is one to ponder whether or not the reader agrees with what Hyattsville has done.

—Daniel Hertzler, Scottdale, Pennsylvania, a longtime editor and writer, contributes a monthly column to the Daily Courier (Connellsville, Pa.).