The ban is that thing in the Anabaptist closet. Stories abound of this severe and condemnatory method of church discipline—its use and mostly its misuse. But what was it that Anabaptists intended and is there a redemptive way to employ the ban?  

The Anabaptist suspicion of top-down leadership remains alive and well in EMC churches, but does congregational governance actually work, and if not, why not and what are the alternatives? If leaders shouldn’t have or don’t accept power, where does the power go?

Having looked at the beginning, Jesse and Andrew now ask if you can find guidelines for community in Revelation. Does God’s plan or design for how things end, provide insight about what our communities should look like?