In the Heartland with the Fellowship of Evangelical Churches<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In my first year as a seminary professor I made a friend with a student who, along with his wife Sarah, have remained friends for 30 years: Scott Wagoner.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2015\/08\/06\/in-the-heartland-with-the-fec\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In the Heartland with the Fellowship of Evangelical Churches\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In my first year as a seminary professor I made a friend with a student who, along with his wife Sarah, have remained friends for 30 years: Scott Wagoner.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2015\/08\/06\/in-the-heartland-with-the-fec\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-08-06T15:18:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-08-07T19:21:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/files\/2015\/08\/Screen-Shot-2015-08-02-at-2.41.52-PM.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2015\/08\/06\/in-the-heartland-with-the-fec\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2015\/08\/06\/in-the-heartland-with-the-fec\/\",\"name\":\"In the Heartland with the Fellowship of Evangelical Churches\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-08-06T15:18:12+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-08-07T19:21:24+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\"},\"description\":\"In my first year as a seminary professor I made a friend with a student who, along with his wife Sarah, have remained friends for 30 years: Scott Wagoner.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2015\/08\/06\/in-the-heartland-with-the-fec\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2015\/08\/06\/in-the-heartland-with-the-fec\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2015\/08\/06\/in-the-heartland-with-the-fec\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"In the Heartland with the Fellowship of Evangelical Churches\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\",\"name\":\"Jesus Creed\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\",\"name\":\"Scot McKnight\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. McKnight, author of more than fifty books, is the Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lombard, IL.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/author\/scotmcknight\/\"}]}<\/script>\n","yoast_head_json":{"title":"In the Heartland with the Fellowship of Evangelical Churches","description":"In my first year as a seminary professor I made a friend with a student who, along with his wife Sarah, have remained friends for 30 years: Scott Wagoner.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2015\/08\/06\/in-the-heartland-with-the-fec\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"In the Heartland with the Fellowship of Evangelical Churches","og_description":"In my first year as a seminary professor I made a friend with a student who, along with his wife Sarah, have remained friends for 30 years: Scott Wagoner.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2015\/08\/06\/in-the-heartland-with-the-fec\/","og_site_name":"Jesus Creed","article_published_time":"2015-08-06T15:18:12+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-08-07T19:21:24+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/files\/2015\/08\/Screen-Shot-2015-08-02-at-2.41.52-PM.png"}],"author":"Scot McKnight","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Scot McKnight","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2015\/08\/06\/in-the-heartland-with-the-fec\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2015\/08\/06\/in-the-heartland-with-the-fec\/","name":"In the Heartland with the Fellowship of Evangelical Churches","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-08-06T15:18:12+00:00","dateModified":"2015-08-07T19:21:24+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252"},"description":"In my first year as a seminary professor I made a friend with a student who, along with his wife Sarah, have remained friends for 30 years: Scott Wagoner.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2015\/08\/06\/in-the-heartland-with-the-fec\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2015\/08\/06\/in-the-heartland-with-the-fec\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2015\/08\/06\/in-the-heartland-with-the-fec\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"In the Heartland with the Fellowship of Evangelical Churches"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/","name":"Jesus Creed","description":"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252","name":"Scot McKnight","description":"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. McKnight, author of more than fifty books, is the Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lombard, IL.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/author\/scotmcknight\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/197"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58260\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

{"id":58260,"date":"2015-08-06T10:18:12","date_gmt":"2015-08-06T15:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?p=58260"},"modified":"2015-08-07T14:21:24","modified_gmt":"2015-08-07T19:21:24","slug":"in-the-heartland-with-the-fec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2015\/08\/06\/in-the-heartland-with-the-fec\/","title":{"rendered":"In the Heartland with the Fellowship of Evangelical Churches"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"Screen$ <\/a>In my first year as a seminary professor I made a friend with a student who, along with his wife Sarah, have remained friends for 30 years: Scott Wagoner. Scott was not only a very fine student but a solid Christian, became a pastor and then has moved more into denominational leadership. Scott was my grad assistant and he was followed by his friend, now our friend along with his wife Willa: Matt Williams (prof at Biola).<\/p>\n

What connected them was the Evangelical Mennonite Church, formerly the Defenseless Mennonites (which speaks for itself \u2014 a bit like our wonderful New Zealanders naming themselves the Kiwis); the formerly Mennonite group is now called the Fellowship of Evangelical Churches<\/strong><\/a> (FEC). The FEC is steadily growing and gaining a missional vision. When I think of the FEC I think the word \u201cfaithful.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was invited to speak at the FEC annual convention, this year called Embark 2015<\/strong><\/a>. It was a great joy to be with them with their historic commitment to fellowship and evangelism and missions work. Thursday evening finished with a wonderful talk about the work of the FEC in Burkina Faso.<\/p>\n

We saw some folks we haven\u2019t seen in years \u2014 like Don Roth and Cal Rychener (at Northwoods) and Wayne Baker.<\/p>\n

It was an honor for Kris and me to be invited to speak to their annual conference at Northwoods Community Church<\/strong><\/a> on the north end of Peoria last Thursday-Saturday. I was asked to speak of the value of their past (among the Mennonites and as anabaptists) for their missional future. I began with Harold Bender\u2019s famous three themes of anabaptism (discipleship, church as fellowship, and nonviolence and peace), their historic commitment to Scripture as the foundation for theology and church life, and then I moved into Paul\u2019s vision for the church as a \u201cfellowship of differents.\u201d (Yes,\u00a0A Fellowship of Differents<\/em>.) One session cannot a whole vision sketch, so I focused a church as an alternative society that is known for loving its neighbors (love as rugged commitment to be with, for and unto Christlikeness).<\/p>\n

And there were some workshops, and my topic was on how the church has understood kingdom \u2014 so I spent time developing five themes on the kingdom of God (from\u00a0Kingdom Conspiracy<\/em>).<\/p>\n

There is so much about the anabaptist vision, whether the one articulated by Harold Bender or others, that is of dramatic significance for the church today. While it is trendy today to equate \u201canabaptist\u201d with either \u201csocial justice\u201d or \u201csocial activism,\u201d and while the historic anabaptist churches have\u00a0always responded in mercy to those in need<\/em>, the anabaptist vision emerges from deep commitment to Scripture and to the scriptural way of life as the way for the church of all times. Furthermore, the anabaptist vision has always been church-centered.<\/p>\n

So honored to have been a part of Embark 2015<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"