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?

In the world, but not of it, has been a particular challenge for Anabaptists who isolated themselves early in their history and still carry some of that culture. Guests today acknowledge the strengths but also challenge some of the assumptions we may make about things like holiness, our culture and our role in the world.

Is the body just a helpful analogy of how the church functions together or is it more than that? Is it expressing something more real? And if that is true, is the connection between baptism and membership more important than we may think?

This episode tackles some tough and foundational concepts but guests Dr. Meghan Larissa Good, Dr. Patrick Franklin, Dr. Betty Pries and Dr. Beth Stovell make a convincing case for why the concepts matter and how they apply to community.

In the second part of the question of why it is important to talk about community, hosts Jesse and Andrew focus more tightly on anabaptist communities specifically. Community is universal to the church—something the church the world over is grappling with. However, it has been particularly important to anabaptists historically.

Join Jesse and Andrew as they interview Layton Friesen, Stuart Murray, Meghan Larissa Good and Steve Bell on why community is worth talking about.