Joining the Amish

Grace Leads Me Home by Marlene Miller Marlene C. Miller grew up Marlene Bailey in a little town on the edge of the Holmes County, Ohio Amish settlement.  One day while ice-skating, Marlene meets Johnny Miller, an Amish boy five years her senior.  She would later marry Johnny, join the Amish church at age 23, [...]

Continue reading Joining the Amish: 45 years later

Alice Mary writes: About 6 years ago, my husband & “kids” (then ages 23 & 29 at the time, daughter & son, respectively) were coming back from some concert in Millennium Park (or Grant Park?) and a young Mennonite woman (late teens, I’d guess) greeted me (I guess it was obvious I was the “Mom”) [...]

Continue reading Do Amish evangelize?

If you’re thinking you’d like to join the Amish, odds are it’s the wrong decision. As we’ve discussed many times (see “If you left the English, what would you gain?“), there are too many challenges for most people to adopt an Amish life. Still, some kindle a desire to become Plain.  Many are younger individuals. [...]

Continue reading Joining the Amish after 50?

When I first met the Amish, I spent a warm fuzzy period admiring and even idealizing Amish society.  This was in the summer of 2004, and I was selling a set of books called the Family Bible Library to Amish families.  I had spent a fruitful few weeks in the Arthur, Illinois community before traveling [...]

Continue reading If you “left the English”, what would you gain?

“Brimming with many children,” write the authors of The Amish Way, “most Amish homes produce eight or more sets of dirty dishes three times a day.  That means at least twenty-four glasses, dozens of plates, and countless pieces of silverware, not to mention pots, pans, mixing bowls, platters, and serving utensils.” Yet you won’t find [...]

Continue reading Part 2 of The Amish Way interview and 10-book giveaway

North Carolina is my home state, and not one known for having a large Amish population.  Amish have attempted to settle NC in the past, however, and today one settlement does exist, at Union Grove, a hamlet lying some miles west of Winston-Salem. Union Grove, which began in 1985 as a spinoff of the Guthrie, [...]

Continue reading Union Grove and Yanceyville, NC Amish settlements

Outsiders sometimes express a desire to join the Amish.  As an Amish authority explains in Richard Stevick's Growing up Amish: The Teenage Years, seekers often come with misguided notions: "When seekers from the outside come to us wanting to be Amish," explained a bishop, "they are often attracted for the wrong reasons.  They could have [...]

Continue reading Seeking the Amish-for the wrong reasons

Outsiders often express an interest in joining the Amish.  The Amish traditionally do not seek out converts.  In one example related by John Hostetler in Amish Society, a particularly zealous outsider–though never actually formally joining an Amish congregation–did much to stir up Amish circles in the 1950s.  As Hostetler writes: When outsiders join, or attempt [...]

Continue reading ‘Joining’ the Amish: Russell Maniaci and the Amish mission movement

In this second part of an interview with an anonymous Lancaster County Amishman, we look at the phenomenon of outsiders joining the Amish, using the Amish name to market and sell products to the public, Amish participation in the recent presidential election, and the meaning and purpose of shunning. (And if you missed the first [...]

Continue reading Part Two: An Amish America Q-and-A with a Lancaster County Amishman

Millers, Yoders, Schrocks, Stoltzfuses.  These names are a dime a dozen in Amish America. Meet enough Amish people, and once in a while you’ll come across an unusual name, one that may sound non-Germanic or even a Germanic-sounding name that is simply uncommon. The Amish have welcomed a fair share of converts to the faith [...]

Continue reading Unusual Amish names