I watched a video series that followed five Amish youth during their rumspringa in Great Britain. Rumspringa (running around) is a time in some Amish communities when older teens are allowed to experience the outside world before they decide if they will be baptized and join the community. You’d think that most people that age would jump at the chance to leave the restrictive Amish communities, but less than 10% do. Unlike most Christian groups, the Amish are growing by more than 3% a year.

I don’t share some of the Amish beliefs and practices like trying to live as people did in the 1800s or limiting education to eighth-grade or keeping women in the home, but I admire their insistence that faith has to determine your whole life. They treasure family, community, hard work, simplicity, forgiveness, not conforming to the world, and non-violence. 

I wish Lutheran Christians could articulate better how their faith shapes their lives. When we talk about faith, we quickly talk about our church, something the Amish rarely do. They have no church buildings and only gather together for worship every other week. We tend to make the goal of evangelism coming to church rather than a conversion of life.

I probably harp on this theme too often, but it’s important to me. What difference does our faith make in our lives? How does it shape who we are? Is it more than worshiping on Sundays? We need to think about that for ourselves. How we are as a person is the first step on evangelism.

Read Colossians 3:17 and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Wayne