The Dirty Mennonite
A Blog on Anabaptist Theology, History and Modern Ecclesiology

So, I owe plenty of inspiration for blogging to Scot McKnight and his perpetually amazing Jesus Creed blog. He loves coffee as I do and I remember reading about his love for Chestnut Hill Coffee Company out of Philadelphia. Now that I live in Philly I thought I would go check them out. Truly amazing coffee.

I bought a pound of their Peru beans. Complex without being bitter. Just full of flavor.

My name is Ryan. Currently, I’m a young husband, father and church planter in the City of Philadelphia. We live in the Fishtown neighborhood and have a real desire to see the Gospel flourish here for the glory of the Father and for His Kingdom.

I suppose you are probably wondering why this site is called “The Dirty Mennonite.” I will do my best to explain. I grew up in central IL in a small town called Hopedale. It was and still is heavily populated by Mennonites. My father grew up in the Mennonite Church like his father before him, and his father before him. He met my mother in high school who grew up in the Pentecostal church. So, our family grew up going to a Pentecostal church that along the way became very influenced by the so called “Third Wave of the Holy Spirit” Charismatic movement. So, I was speaking in tongues and dancing around in worship at a very young age. Oh, it was the kind of church where if you didn’t speak in tongues you probably weren’t saved.

I was about 13 when things began to not go so well at the church. Families began to leave and soon our family had left. I felt lost and I kinda felt like I had been fooled by the whole experience. I began to really read and study Scripture on my own at that point. I read every theology book I could get my hands on. I even used my paper-route money to get Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology that had just been released. After some searching our family ended up in a Mennonite Church that had also been influenced by the Charismatic movement. It wasn’t as extreme as the church we grew up in. I soon became a member there and began learning what it meant to be a Mennonite. It felt good. It felt like I was connecting with my ancestral roots.

I chose to go to a Grace Brethren school in Indiana named Grace College. I was a Bible and Communications major there. During that time I began attending a church called Christ’s Covenant Church. It basically was from a Reformed Baptist tradition which was good for me because I was fairly Calvinistic. After graduating from college I then went to the Seminary associated with Grace College called Grace Theological Seminary. It was during Seminary that I really developed a love for Anabaptist history and theology. I even took a Anabaptist History and Theology course at Associated Biblical Mennonite Seminary. I still study in this area today. I graduated in 2007 with a Master of Divinity. After that, we moved to Philadelphia with some friends to begin our adventures in church planting.

So, again, how does all of this make me a “Dirty Mennonite.” Back when I was in college, I had some friends who thought it was so weird that I was a Mennonite. I guess I just didn’t fit the stereotype. I typically had a big beard (which I thought was very Mennonite). I often didn’t smell too good and I occasionally cursed. Pretty soon they begin calling me the dirty Mennonite. Something about name struck a cord inside of me. Maybe “Dirty Mennonite” just reminded me of the paradox that all Christians feel concerning our sinful hearts and our desire to be holy.

So, here I am. I’ve tried blogging before and I’m going to try again. I don’t know why you made it to this site but thanks and I hope to hear from you.

It was ten years ago today that Rich Mullins was killed in a car accident about 30 miles from my home in a tragic car accident. Rich was kind of hard to describe. He probably best known as the guy who wrote and sang Awesome God but if that is all you know then you are missing the point of his life. Rich was a modern day mystic. He often called St Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) his hero and modeled his life after him by showing great compassion towards the poor and adhering to a vow of poverty. In 1997, he composed a musical about the life of St Francis (set in the Old West) called Canticle of the Plains.

Rich was seen as an enigma to the Christian music industry. Often barefoot, unshaven, in a white t-shirt and torn jeans, and badly in need of a haircut, Mullins did not look like the average Christian music singer. Unlike most CCM people, Mullins did not consider his music his primary ministry, but rather a means to pay his bills. Instead, his ministry was the way he treated his neighbors, family and enemies. Taking a vow of poverty, he only accepted a small church salary. You see, he had made a deal with his home church when he started doing music that he would never make more than the pastor and money that he made beyond that because of his music would be given to the church. Awesome God alone would have made him millions. Rich spent the last years of his life on a Navajo reservation teaching music to children.

Personally, I remember a couple of things about Rich. In 1995 I bought “A Liturgy, A Legacy & A Ragamuffin Band” and it had a major impact on my life. Later that year I saw Rich perform at Agape Music Festival at Greenville College. I remember being excited to see Rich play. I knew nothing about the man, I just knew I liked his music. He followed the Newsboys crazy flashy show. He could not have been in greater contrast. Rich walked up by himself looking like a homeless guy. He walked up and it was just him. He just started playing his guitar (which was really out of tune) and singing. It wasn’t so much his voice but his words and passion that impacted me. He was probably the most real person I had ever seen. He was almost to real for our little world. I remember he started to sing “Calling Out Your Name” and it goes something like this:

Where the sacred rivers meet
Beneath the shadow of the Keeper of the plains
I feel thunder in the sky
I see the sky about to rain
And I hear the prairies calling out Your name

Just as Rich was singing these lines a huge thunder cloud rolled over and began to rumble. The smell of a storm came over the crowd and it began to rain. It was as though God approved of Rich and his simple song of praise.

A second experience I had with Rich happened a few months before his death. It was at Cornerstone Music Festival in 1997. It was late one night and I was watching a little known band called “This Train.” Unknown to me, Rich was a friend of Mark Robertson the bassist of the group. Robertson was a part of the Ragamuffin Band. So I’m standing there in this tent with the small crowd and enjoying the odd rockabilly band, and suddenly standing beside me is Rich. Our eyes catch, he sorta gives me this strange look maybe in response to my surprise at standing next to him. A quick mutual smirk and we go back to enjoying the show. Sometime during the show he takes off and as I’m leaving I see him and Robertson sneaking a smoke together. I didn’t know Christians could smoke until that moment.

I remember the day Rich was hit by the semi. It was such a sad day but somehow I knew that Rich never really fit in here on earth. It seems that those who knew him best knew him to be a restless soul never really at home here. He was one who always had one foot on earth and one in heaven. On that day I knew that he was home with his closest Friend.

So the other day Allison, Jacob, and I were traveling north on the major Highway here in Philly.  I was going up to take a drug test for a job I was applying for.  Allison and I were chatting while the traffic was getting fairly heavy for 3:00 pm.  I noticed a police officer riding a police motorcycle a few car lengths ahead of us.  It was a three lane highway, we were in the far right lane and the police officer was in the far left lane (I thought he was in the center lane but Allison assures me he was in the far left lane) in a line of traffic.  Suddenly, the officer lost control of his bike and began to flip head over heals.  He separated from his bike and ended up in the middle lane while his bike flew in front of us in the far right lane.  I swerved missing the bike and quickly parked in the emergency lane.  

Adrenaline flowing and scared out of my mind I jumped out of our car waving my arms as I ran to the officer.  I was pretty sure that he wasn’t hit by any cars after he fell off the bike but I was expecting the worst as I approached keeping a keen eye on the approaching traffic.  Miraculously, all of the on coming traffic got stopped fairly quickly.  I kneeled down beside the officer and realized that he was still conscious but obviously in shock.  I did a quick check over his body to make sure that there wasn’t a bleeding wound that needed pressure applied to it.  The only injuries that I could see were road rash on his left arm and some blood slowing coming from his mouth.  Everything amazingly seemed to be where it should be.  I noticed his name was Officer Williams so I grabbed his hand praying and I just kept saying, “Keep breathing Officer Williams, keep breathing.”  Soon, other officers began to show up and eventually the ambulance and I backed away.  The last I heard was that Officer Williams was taken to the Hospital and his most serious injury was a broken arm.  Truly a miracle.  My heart is racing just thinking about now.  Every time I see someone riding a motorcycle while I’m driving I cringe. 

https://www.policeone.com/news/1298126/

Anybody who knows anything about my politics knows that I hate social security.  I hate it with a fiery passion.  And you know something…I believe every working person under 30 should hate it as well.  Do you realize how bad it is for us?  Here’s the deal, the government takes 12% of your earnings each year. This in turn gives you retirement (also including medicaid and medicare), disability, and spousal benefits.  Retirement begins after the age of 65.  When social security began in 1935 as part of the New Deal it wasn’t a bad thing but it is no good for us today.  Lets do some math using my life.  If I were to make an average of only $30,000 a year from age 22 to 65 I will have made $1,290,000.  Social Security will have taken $154,800 or about $3,600 each year at its current rate.  If I were allowed to have that money and invest it in a Roth IRA making 10% (not difficult to do) I would have $1,730,000 saved for retirement when I turn 65.  What would social security give me you ask?  If I were to live until age 85, social security would give me a total of about $722,000 for retirement.  Yes, a million dollars less.  If I don’t live to 85 that number obviously goes down and certainly can’t pass that money along to my children like I could with a Roth IRA.  And here is the real kicker folks, because of large amount of boomers about to retire, the government in order to keep the program running at full capacity will need to raise the amount they take from us (currently that 12%) and give us less benefits in return.  So yes, I hate social security and I actually liked Bush’s plan to faze it out by offering individual accounts, its not perfect but it is better than what we have.   Too bad he got nailed from both sides on it.  

If you are interested more on this topic Dick Armey just wrote an article for Fox News and it can be found athttp://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,258763,00.html.  Enough of my ranting, I will post a video of a tarantula and a scorpion fighting to the death later.