1525 English Lane

“ To respond to the call of faith, to allow the Holy Spirit to rein free in your soul and in your life, is truly Man’s greatest duty before God.”

1525 English Lane - Anabaptist Living in the Modern World

We are the Anabaptist faith in the modern world - Welcome to New Hope, and Welcome to the future we all hope to share.

We seek to learn and perhaps to share our ways and knowledge with you - as we have 500 years of healthy and successful communities that demonstrate that we might perhaps be of service to you, our neighbors.

With your help, perhaps we can help create and offer solutions to these apparently universal problems in the modern world.

We of New Hope and our English Lane communications initiative represent a project that has been developed by a few of us who feel the call to serve.

We do respect and share with you issues of modernization, misunderstanding, and rapid technological and social change.

If you are unfamiliar with our tradtional communities or history, and the unique culture we carefully maintain - you may wish to click this link .

Why now?

This is not an effort to spread our faith. We never seek to convince nor convert. We respect and celebrate that you have your own sacred traditions, and represent a myriad of world cultures, opinions and values..

Yet we live among you. You know us - many of you drive past our farms and small communities, and we see you look in wonder at our healthy children, rich fields, and you hear our laughter as we toil alongside you - recognizing that we value humor, family and the satisfaction of hard and simple labor.

You may have seen our Sunday gatherings, farmyards crowded with buggies, and may have noticed we build no churches. You photograph us as we work with our powerful horses in the fields, and enjoy watching us mark the seasons as we follow our age-old patterns of life.

We shop with you at your stores, or you shop in our modest groceries and purchase our goods and fruits of our labor. We seem happy - and indeed, within the confines of life's challenges, we are.

For decades now your doctors and scientists have occasionally approached us and asked,

"How is it you live without apparent conflict, without suicide, without significant addiction or mental illness, and somehow seem nearly free from the plague of these problems that beset modern America?"

But for almost 500 years, we have smiled and replied, "Would you like to join us for dinner?" And remained silent.

What has changed? What does New Hope represent? How are you different from other Anabaptists?

You see, one of our early Anabaptist beliefs and guiding principles of faith is to stand somewhat apart, to in appearance and language to stand aloof - for us it is a matter of faith, scriptural conformance, and tradition. In fact - many of the brethren of Amish, Old-Order Mennonite and even modern Anabaptist faiths oppose this effort to share our spiritual and cultural traditions and perhaps help others.

However we of New Hope are called to reach out. We feel a strong call of faith - and that to fail to share our pattern of living, our priorities, our culture and our patterns of life represents a failure to be of service to others - a failure of compassion.

Obviously some of you desire to know us, and to perhaps learn why we seem so prosperous and industrious, so devoted to home and family, and so apparently immune to many of the major problems besetting people in the modern world.

Thus we, just like the original Anabaptist founders in the year 1525, feel called to change. We will not deny the clear call of the Holy Spirit, or ignore the suffering of our neighbors both near and far. We are making a deliberate choice to be different from our fellow Anabaptist brethren - and we will endure if necessary the rejection of our own communities.

Our way is simple, our way is strong, and our way seems to in some way be nearly immune to many modern issues that create so much division and suffering in the communities that surround us.

Together we hope to work with you to help learn together what it is about our way of life minimizes so many modern problems, and we want work with you to share this knowledge with those in need.

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We do not seek to convert nor convince, but if you wish to learn more about our specific faith, click here now.

All are welcome at our table, all genders, all races, all creeds... you may adopt our path and live in a new way, without ever having to turn away from the life and faith you live now.

Thank you for reading.

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