The Bethel Experience in Retrospect |
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THE BETHEL EXPERIENCE IN RETROSPECT JOANNE ZERGER JANZEN My three years in the small Christian fellowship groups at Bethel College continue to be valuable to me in several ways. While par-ticipating in these groups which we called seminars, I began to dis-cover a religion more valid for me than the one I had been prac-ticing. This is a kind of Christianity which calls me to live in a loving, forgiving relationship with as many persons as possible and to help them become their best, potential selves. This involves per-sons related to me in widely diverse ways-the children in Jordan who need milk and my home church member, my unpleasant neighbor lady and my graduate student friends, my parents and the Congolese student who needs a French teacher. The means to fulfill this call also are ones of personal contact. The Christian community seeks, in Christ's spirit, to help its member defi~e what his call means in particular situations; the community's encouragement and forgiveness give him enough confidence and security to risk following this call. This is a contrast to my earlier belief that being Christian was es-sentially a private project undertaken by oneself with God's help and that one could establish the right personal relationship with God independent of other people. The call to commit myself to the task of reconciling separated people has helped unify my religious beliefs and the purpose in my life. The discovery of the social nature of Christianity came to me largely through a group of Christians, our seminar, who shared their insights, questions, and past experiences concerning the Christian life. I learned at least as much from what our group tried to be as from what we discussed .. We tried to act and make our decisions according to the truth that emerged from our conversation and the convic-tion that came out of our worship. One year our fellowship tried to follow through on our discussion of communion by deciding whether we should take this sacrament in some form in our own informal church. Members made an effort to talk out and forgive the grudges between themselves and others. We tried to assist each other with practical problems. Several fellow seminar members and I were con-fronted with the choice of a major were guided by the consequent seminar sessions on Christian decision-making and vocation. With the aid of the principles and approaches outlined fa the weekly meeting, 43 several friends and I could talk through the very specific pros and cons of my choosing an English major. The most personal and the most important guidance and support that seminar members gave each other often took place in such discussions between two or three members. My enthusiasm for our serious Chr,istian fellowship grew because here Christianity seemed to be alive. Right action and belief for par-ticular situations were determined by the group seeking God's will, rather than from rules for the Christian life. This idea of Christian discipleship has made me more free to do God's will and to thereby find myself because the right thing to do must continually be deter-mined anew; I do not become so restricted by an inflexible com-mitment, for example, to being a chemistry major or an English teacher, when I could better do God's will in a different way. I also credit the fellowship for making me more persistent in my own Christian searching and discipline. The seminar discussions gave my efforts added significance; the concern of fellow members who felt some responsibility for me encouraged and aided me; and the help and interest they expected from me made me less negligent in giving the help they needed. My seminar experience was valuable because here I found out ex-perientially what my heritage from ·the Anabaptists was. Our seminar studied the Anabaptist concept of the church and Christian disciple-ship, and then tried to embody in our own group what we found helpful from their ideas and experiences. In this way I developed an appreciation and enthusiasm for my religious ancestry that I would not have gained through a detached investigation of them. I value my experience with the Bethel seminars for what they tried to be, even though we frequently failed to drive discussions through to decisions or to be as open and honest as we could have or to deal directly with barriers that developed within our group. But from our occasional successes I realize what quality of Christian living; close fellowship groups could make possible, and so I am grateful to the Bethel seminars for an ideal, which I tried to sketch in the preceding paragraphs. Our shortcomings also have taught me some things to watch for in my future participation in Christian fellowships. Speculative philo-sophic and theological discussions often left behind those members lacking a philosophic bent or the right background of reading and sometimes kept those carrying the discussions from directly confront-ing more personal and important issues. Sessions on practical prob- 44 lems, such as anger toward those dorm-mates whose noise disturbed us, were the discussions in which we had the most common experiences and interests and the least difficulty making ourselves understood. Our seminar experience underlined the necessity of giving our fellowship continual attention. For members to develop a Christian responsibility for each other, we needed to spend more time than the weekly seminar hour learing to know and trust each other. We needed a steering committee which met before each seminar session to plan the next meeting. It was important that the steering com-mittee define a current version of members' interests, consider the internal problems and the purpose and direction of the seminar, and investigate issu~s external to the group with which it should be con-cerned. All of these can shift quickly for a group of college students; the question a student places on the discussion agenda at the first of the year may no longer be his life concern when the seminar is scheduled to take it up. In order to keep the fellowship effective, the committee must keep in constant touch with all members to inform them of the plans for the next meeting, to show concern for their absences, and to get the feedback of ideas about what the seminar is and ought to be doing. One problem to our seminars was the fringe member, who did not commit himself to regular, active participation, although the group asks this of its members. It hurt those of us who were enthusiastic about our small fellowship to know that others could indifferently take or leave something so important to us. It took extra effort and often frustrating conversations to continually bring the fringe member up-to-date on· the seminar developments since he last attended, espe-cially if he eventually dropped out anyway. As a result I think these irregular attenders were sometimes wrongly blamed for the hesitancy of the regular members to share the more important sides of them-selves or for general lack of enthusiasm and effort in the seminar. The seminar is responsible for accommodating in some way persons not yet ready to commit themselves to the fellowship, and I have observed in our close Christian fellowship at the University of Kansas that when regular members feel themselves a part of a vital, signifi-cant fellowship and are able to be open with each other, then visitors do not interfere or detract from the meeting, but rather are caught up by its spirit. The value of my Bethel seminar experi-ence has made me eager to be part of a similar group in the new communities where I will live. 45
Object Description
Title | The Bethel Experience in Retrospect |
Rights | https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/ |
Institution | Mennonite Historical Library |
Original format |
text |
Language |
English |
Collection Name |
AMBS and GC John Howard Yoder Digital Library |
Date created | 1966-09 |
Subject |
Mennonites -- Education (Higher) Christian universities and colleges Concern Bethel College (North Newton, Kans.) |
Creator | Janzen, Joanne Zerger |
Publisher |
Goshen College |
Description | An article reflecting on a personal experience of participating in a small Christian fellowship group at Bethel College. |
Rights Explanation |
In public domain. |
Extent | 3 p. |
Digital format |
pdf |
Item ID | im-amdc-jhy-0083 |
Description
Title | The Bethel Experience in Retrospect |
Institution | Mennonite Historical Library |
Original format |
text |
Language |
English |
Collection Name |
AMBS and GC John Howard Yoder Digital Library |
Date created | 1966-09 |
Subject |
Mennonites -- Education (Higher) Christian universities and colleges Concern Bethel College (North Newton, Kans.) |
Creator | Janzen, Joanne Zerger |
Publisher |
Goshen College |
Description | An article reflecting on a personal experience of participating in a small Christian fellowship group at Bethel College. |
Rights Explanation |
In public domain. |
Extent | 3 p. |
Digital format |
pdf |
Item ID | im-amdc-jhy-0083 |
Text | THE BETHEL EXPERIENCE IN RETROSPECT JOANNE ZERGER JANZEN My three years in the small Christian fellowship groups at Bethel College continue to be valuable to me in several ways. While par-ticipating in these groups which we called seminars, I began to dis-cover a religion more valid for me than the one I had been prac-ticing. This is a kind of Christianity which calls me to live in a loving, forgiving relationship with as many persons as possible and to help them become their best, potential selves. This involves per-sons related to me in widely diverse ways-the children in Jordan who need milk and my home church member, my unpleasant neighbor lady and my graduate student friends, my parents and the Congolese student who needs a French teacher. The means to fulfill this call also are ones of personal contact. The Christian community seeks, in Christ's spirit, to help its member defi~e what his call means in particular situations; the community's encouragement and forgiveness give him enough confidence and security to risk following this call. This is a contrast to my earlier belief that being Christian was es-sentially a private project undertaken by oneself with God's help and that one could establish the right personal relationship with God independent of other people. The call to commit myself to the task of reconciling separated people has helped unify my religious beliefs and the purpose in my life. The discovery of the social nature of Christianity came to me largely through a group of Christians, our seminar, who shared their insights, questions, and past experiences concerning the Christian life. I learned at least as much from what our group tried to be as from what we discussed .. We tried to act and make our decisions according to the truth that emerged from our conversation and the convic-tion that came out of our worship. One year our fellowship tried to follow through on our discussion of communion by deciding whether we should take this sacrament in some form in our own informal church. Members made an effort to talk out and forgive the grudges between themselves and others. We tried to assist each other with practical problems. Several fellow seminar members and I were con-fronted with the choice of a major were guided by the consequent seminar sessions on Christian decision-making and vocation. With the aid of the principles and approaches outlined fa the weekly meeting, 43 several friends and I could talk through the very specific pros and cons of my choosing an English major. The most personal and the most important guidance and support that seminar members gave each other often took place in such discussions between two or three members. My enthusiasm for our serious Chr,istian fellowship grew because here Christianity seemed to be alive. Right action and belief for par-ticular situations were determined by the group seeking God's will, rather than from rules for the Christian life. This idea of Christian discipleship has made me more free to do God's will and to thereby find myself because the right thing to do must continually be deter-mined anew; I do not become so restricted by an inflexible com-mitment, for example, to being a chemistry major or an English teacher, when I could better do God's will in a different way. I also credit the fellowship for making me more persistent in my own Christian searching and discipline. The seminar discussions gave my efforts added significance; the concern of fellow members who felt some responsibility for me encouraged and aided me; and the help and interest they expected from me made me less negligent in giving the help they needed. My seminar experience was valuable because here I found out ex-perientially what my heritage from ·the Anabaptists was. Our seminar studied the Anabaptist concept of the church and Christian disciple-ship, and then tried to embody in our own group what we found helpful from their ideas and experiences. In this way I developed an appreciation and enthusiasm for my religious ancestry that I would not have gained through a detached investigation of them. I value my experience with the Bethel seminars for what they tried to be, even though we frequently failed to drive discussions through to decisions or to be as open and honest as we could have or to deal directly with barriers that developed within our group. But from our occasional successes I realize what quality of Christian living; close fellowship groups could make possible, and so I am grateful to the Bethel seminars for an ideal, which I tried to sketch in the preceding paragraphs. Our shortcomings also have taught me some things to watch for in my future participation in Christian fellowships. Speculative philo-sophic and theological discussions often left behind those members lacking a philosophic bent or the right background of reading and sometimes kept those carrying the discussions from directly confront-ing more personal and important issues. Sessions on practical prob- 44 lems, such as anger toward those dorm-mates whose noise disturbed us, were the discussions in which we had the most common experiences and interests and the least difficulty making ourselves understood. Our seminar experience underlined the necessity of giving our fellowship continual attention. For members to develop a Christian responsibility for each other, we needed to spend more time than the weekly seminar hour learing to know and trust each other. We needed a steering committee which met before each seminar session to plan the next meeting. It was important that the steering com-mittee define a current version of members' interests, consider the internal problems and the purpose and direction of the seminar, and investigate issu~s external to the group with which it should be con-cerned. All of these can shift quickly for a group of college students; the question a student places on the discussion agenda at the first of the year may no longer be his life concern when the seminar is scheduled to take it up. In order to keep the fellowship effective, the committee must keep in constant touch with all members to inform them of the plans for the next meeting, to show concern for their absences, and to get the feedback of ideas about what the seminar is and ought to be doing. One problem to our seminars was the fringe member, who did not commit himself to regular, active participation, although the group asks this of its members. It hurt those of us who were enthusiastic about our small fellowship to know that others could indifferently take or leave something so important to us. It took extra effort and often frustrating conversations to continually bring the fringe member up-to-date on· the seminar developments since he last attended, espe-cially if he eventually dropped out anyway. As a result I think these irregular attenders were sometimes wrongly blamed for the hesitancy of the regular members to share the more important sides of them-selves or for general lack of enthusiasm and effort in the seminar. The seminar is responsible for accommodating in some way persons not yet ready to commit themselves to the fellowship, and I have observed in our close Christian fellowship at the University of Kansas that when regular members feel themselves a part of a vital, signifi-cant fellowship and are able to be open with each other, then visitors do not interfere or detract from the meeting, but rather are caught up by its spirit. The value of my Bethel seminar experi-ence has made me eager to be part of a similar group in the new communities where I will live. 45 |