Nerding out

Bloggers unite to create online Anabaptist community

July 2, 2014 | Young Voices
Aaron Epp | Young Voices Co-editor

According to Merriam-Webster.com, the word “nerd” is defined as “a person who behaves awkwardly around other people and usually has unstylish clothes, hair, etc.” or “a person who is very interested in technical subjects, computers, etc.”

Chris Lenshyn falls into the latter category, and he’s not just any kind of nerd—he’s a self-described “MennoNerd.” The 33-year-old, who blogs regularly about his faith at www.anabaptistly.wordpress.com, is one of the driving forces behind MennoNerds, a network of Anabaptists from around the world who connect through blogs, Twitter, Facebook and Google+ to discuss their faith.

In 2012, Lenshyn, a pastor at Emmanuel Mennonite Church in Abbotsford, B.C., was having a conversation on Twitter with Robert Martin, a 41-year-old software tester from Boyertown, Pennsylvania. The two had been reading each other’s blogs for some time, and along with some other Anabaptist bloggers they connected with via social media, began to wonder what it might look like if they started an online hub for their work—a sort of one-stop shop for people interested in Anabaptist blogs and conversation.

One of blogger created a website for the group, and they decided on the name MennoNerds.

“We were talking about how nerdy we were—talking about blogging on the Internet, making a website for other anabaptist blogs—[and] we coined the term MennoNerds,” Lenshyn recalls. “[The name] is lighthearted, but as a blogging collective and social media community, [we] tackle tough stuff. Our nerdiness and Anabaptist values seem to connect us together.”

MennoNerds.com features 43 syndicated bloggers of varying ages. Most are from North America, although four bloggers are from South Africa, Sweden, England and Australia. There is a MennoNerds group on Facebook with 565 members, and a MennoNerds Facebook page that 684 people have liked. Anyone interested can read the featured blogs, post questions and join the conversation.

Martin says the best thing about MennoNerds is that it connects Anabaptists from around the world.

“If we keep in mind that Jesus Christ’s church is not just the building on the street corner but the body of all believers… a network like this is very important because it makes the global perspective real,” says Martin, who started his blog, www.abnormalanabaptist.wordpress.com, in 2007 as a way to process the things he was learning as a graduate student at Biblical Theological Seminary.

While the blogs and conversations cover a variety of topics, key discussions of late have revolved around what it means to be Anabaptist, human sexuality and race in the church.

Last month, the community hosted a webcast panel discussion titled, “MennoNerds on Race, Mutuality and Anabaptist Community.” Panelists included a PhD student, a Christian Peacemaker Teams member, a Mennonite pastor and a church planter. All were of varying ethnicities, came from different parts of North America and are bloggers.

The MennoNerds community thought that a chance to talk about the issues via webcast and real-time question submissions might be a way to talk about the topic more directly than via Facebook posts and blogs.

“The panel discussion was phenomenal,” Lenshyn says. “The conversation itself served the Anabaptist community very well because we were getting points of view from all over the place.”

Melanie Kampen, a Winnipegger who watched the webcast and participates in MennoNerds discussions, agrees.

“You had different people from different places in the Mennonite church talking about issues of race and racism, which are conversations that don’t tend to happen in our churches as much as they could—at least in the Mennonite church that I’m a part of,” the 24-year-old says.

The topic is important to Kampen because it’s a social justice issue and in the North American Mennonite church, white people still dominate the discourse.

“Mennonite theology and churches, to a large extent, haven’t taken into account, or been attentive to, the experiences of oppression of people of colour in their own churches,” Kampen says. “In that way, it really just perpetuates the oppression.”

Martin says he isn’t sure what’s next for MennoNerds. Other than a book of essays written by MennoNerds contributors that will be published in the fall, it’s anyone’s guess as to what the community will do next.

“People ask, ‘What are your plans for the future?’” Martin says. “Plans? I haven’t planned it [up] to this point, so why start now?”

Lenshyn agrees.

“It’s just kind of fun to explore how technology can facilitate conversations like this,” he says. “It’s a good way to get a global, Anabaptist perspective.”

You can watch the “MennoNerds on Race, Mutuality and Anabaptist Community” webcast, and join in the conversation, by visiting www.mennonerds.com.

--Posted July 2, 2014

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