By Jenny Fulton
An Overview of My Church Background
I grew up in the Dunkard Brethren (DB) Church. No, not Drunkard. Dunkard. It comes from the German word tunker which means ‘to immerse.’ The Dunkard Brethren baptize new members by dunking them forward three times in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
Most people have never heard of this denomination and give me strange, confused looks when I mention it.
Sometimes, my description is something along the lines of, “It’s kind of like the Mennonites where the women wear long skirts and dresses and wear a covering on their head, but the Dunkard Brethren covering is more like a white coffee filter with larger holes.”
I’m not sure what kind of image that gives people, but it probably isn’t very accurate. And no, these Christ-followers aren’t Amish, either, which is a common question people ask when they see the women.
Since I’m about to release a Bible Study and I mention this denomination in the first chapter, I thought I’d give a more thorough explanation of the Dunkard Brethren Church, share a little about my experiences growing up in it, and summarize my exposure to other churches since I left home.
Dunkard Brethren Church History
The Dunkard Brethren Church was originally part of the Church of the Brethren founded by Alexander Mack. He and other leaders who were familiar with the Pietists and Anabaptists (Mennonites) included aspects of those denominations in their new group, which they called Brethren.
August 1708: First Brethren baptisms were held at the Eder River in Schwarzenau, Germany
1719: Brethren began emigrating to America.
1836: Name changed to Fraternity of German Baptists.
1871: Name changed to German Baptist Brethren.
1908: Name changed to the Church of the Brethren.
In the early 1920s, some members felt the main congregation was conforming too much to popular culture. In light of the Brethren commitment to nonconformity, B. E. Kesler started publishing The Bible Monitor to urge the church to maintain their conservative practices. When the church leadership failed to address Kesler’s concerns to his satisfaction, he and other more conservative members split off and formed the Dunkard Brethren Church.
1926: The Dunkard Brethren Church was founded. It now consists of 20 congregations and one mission located in 11 U.S. states.
On the Dunkard Brethren Church website, they state:
“Today, the Dunkard Brethren Church strives to be a group of disciples who are eager to know the Jesus of the Bible as revealed through the Holy Spirit. We take the commandments of Jesus literally and make every attempt to obey them. We seek to fulfill the Great Command of loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Finally, we aim to fulfill the great commission, spreading the gospel to the World. We do this through Sunday services including a Sunday school or Bible study time followed by a preaching service. We encourage a strong sense of church community that engages the local communities with the gospel message and gospel living.”
My Early Years in the Dunkard Brethren Church
My knowledge of God and the Bible was first formed by my parents and the Quinter DB church.
Sunday School: I loved the Bible stories and verses my Sunday school teachers taught me and how they told us about Jesus’ love. When I was five years old, my teacher told us that if we asked Jesus to come live in our hearts, He would be our best friend forever and would never leave us. When I got home, I asked Him to come live in my heart. In the best way I understood at the time, I was telling God that I believed in Him, trusted Him, and was asking Him to always be with me.
Services: During the main church service, which all the kids attended, I enjoyed listening to everyone sing a cappella hymns and started following along in the hymnal as soon as I could read. I liked listening to my mom harmonize and learned how to do likewise by matching her pitch. Like most kids, I was less enthused with sitting still and listening to the sermon. I spent most of that time drawing, coloring, or playing tic-tac-toe and dots and boxes with my sisters.
Homelife: At home, my parents prayed with us, read to us from the Bible, and answered our questions. My dad, who is half Navajo and lived at the Torreon Navajo Mission for several years while he was growing up, talked to us about spiritual warfare, angels and demons, and shared stories of how God protected the missionaries and other believers.
Rules: Like other more conservative denominations, the DB church has a lot of rules. However, my parents always made sure we knew that we were saved by grace and not by following church doctrine. They told us our relationship with God mattered most.
There were, in fact, several rules our family didn’t obey.
For example:
- Clothing: Girls are supposed to wear long skirts and dresses. However, my parents allowed my sisters and I to wear jeans and shorts, except for at church on Sunday. Then we wore long, pretty dresses, most of which were made by my Grandma Morya. We did follow the policy of having long hair.
- TV/Movies: We weren’t supposed to own or watch TV or movies. However, we, and other church families I knew, had a TV/VCR that was hidden in a cabinet. Ours was in my parents’ bedroom. Some families followed the rule of not owning one but went to other homes (including ours) to watch whatever they wanted. I never understood how the latter situation was any better or more obedient than the former.
- Jewelry: Members aren’t allowed to wear jewelry and especially aren’t permitted to get piercings. However, my parents permitted my sisters and I to own and wear jewelry. When my older sister was ten, Mom took her to the mall to get her ears pierced. Soon after, when my sister was at a friend’s house, an older woman in the church told my sister that only heathens pierced their ears. My sister came home and asked Mom what a heathen was. Mom told her and my sister shared what the woman had said. My mom was furious. She immediately assured my sister that the woman was very wrong and that my sister was a Christian because she loved and followed God.
Despite all the rules, I enjoyed going to the DB church. Some of my cousins and one of my best friends attended, and I liked most of the people. It was comforting and familiar.
My Middle School and High School Years in the Dunkard Brethren Church
Preachers: Each congregation in the DB church has multiple ministers who take turns preaching. I loved the different perspectives this provided and the knowledge that if I didn’t like one of the preachers, that was okay because there were others I could look forward to hearing from in future weeks.
Questioning and Studying: By the time I turned twelve, I was paying more attention to the sermons, especially if they talked about the rules. Were those policies truly necessary to be a good Christian? Were they listed anywhere in the Bible? What did Scripture have to say about them? I started reading my Bible more so I could compare what I heard preached to what I saw and understood in Scripture.
After church, my parents discussed what they thought of the day’s preaching–what they agreed or disagreed with.
My older sister and I started studying the Bible together. We began a Bible Study with some of the other girls in the youth group in which we picked a passage to read and discuss. Looking back, I’m a little surprised the elders allowed us to meet at the church without having an adult supervise or lead our study.
Baptism in the DB Church is synonymous to becoming a member. Though some of our friends joined before they were teenagers, my older sister waited until she was 14, and I waited until I was 15. When I finally took that step, I did so on my own terms. I only wore the head covering on Sunday or at other church functions, and didn’t wear long skirts when I was participating in school sports.
Although the church knew fully well which rules I did and did not follow, nobody ever criticized me to my face. I later heard people from other DB churches who saw a picture in the local paper with me in a jersey and shorts complained to our church elders. However, nobody ever confronted me.
Seeking Another Church: At one point when I was in middle school, my family sought to find another church to attend. We tried various churches within a thirty mile radius. Although they seemed fine, I didn’t feel as connected to them as I felt to the DB church. My dad had grown up in it and my mom had been raised in an even more conservative denomination. When you’re familiar with that environment, it isn’t easy to leave, even if you don’t agree with many of the policies.
We returned to DB church and continued attending until I left for college. While I was gone, my parents started going to the Church of the Brethren, located only two blocks from the DB Church.
Church Experiences During College
I stopped wearing the covering as soon as I moved to Omaha, Nebraska to attend Grace University. For the first year or two, I continued to wear long skirts and kept my hair long.
Leaving the DB Church: I absolutely loved my Bible classes, especially when they encouraged me to ask questions and taught me how to better study the Bible.
In one class, we were assigned to read our church’s doctrines and compare them to the Bible. Using the DB Polity Booklet, I concluded that since I didn’t follow many of the policies and didn’t agree with the Scriptural basis for some of them, it didn’t make sense to maintain my membership. I set up a meeting with the Quinter DB preachers and met with them to explain my decision the next time I was home. I was nervous, but the men were very kind and understanding. I continue to hold a great deal of love and respect for the members of the DB Church.
Searching for a New Church: For whatever reason, I had a difficult time fully connecting to any Omaha church. I was unfamiliar with the atmosphere of big city churches and overwhelmed by the megachurch environment. By this time, silently questioning and comparing sermon teachings to the Bible was so automatic that I continued the practice.
A South Sudanese Church: In my first year at college, along with checking out several Sunday morning churches, I occasionally attended a Sudanese church service on Sunday evenings. I volunteered with their children’s ministry on Sunday afternoons and enjoyed seeing how different and enthusiastic their style of worship was compared to what I’d grown up with.
A Spanish-Speaking Church: I forget which churches and how many I attended. At the end of my third year, I heard of a Spanish speaking church where somebody from Grace University attended. Since I was preparing to spend the summer in Mexico with the university’s study abroad program, I decided to check it out. Although I couldn’t understand much of what was said (my three years of high school Spanish was a bit rusty), I enjoyed the warm, friendly atmosphere and the people. When I returned there after almost three months in Mexico, I understood almost everything and began to get to know more of the high schoolers, college age people, and their families. I continued attending El Agua Viva for the next two years until I graduated.
International Church in China
I graduated from Grace University in May of 2007 with a bachelor’s degree in Bible, a bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education, and an endorsement in ESL (English as a Second Language). Two months later, I moved to Kunming, China to teach ESL at Kunming International Academy.
Being a Christian believer in China is no trifling matter. There’s no room for a lukewarm faith. If foreigners are caught engaging in missionary activities, they can get kicked out of the country, or worse. And they’d be the lucky ones. The Chinese nationals they interact with are in danger of suffering far greater consequences if discovered.
However, foreigners are allowed to be Christian and attend their own churches. There were two options in Kunming: a larger, more traditional service with a piano or guitar for worship; or a smaller, more charismatic one with a full-on worship band. Since I’d spent most of my life in churches of the first kind, I opted to try the second.
They met in a repurposed apartment. Flags proudly displayed the heritage of those whose hearts united in devotion to the One True God. In this country where missionary work was illegal and free worship of God was prohibited, Asians, Africans, Europeans, Latin Americans, North Americans, and Australians from all over the world loudly proclaimed their Christian faith.
Though I continued to listen and compare sermon teachings to my Biblical understanding, whether or not I agreed with every point felt unimportant. I had too much love and respect for the other believers for any disagreements to matter.
Church Experience in New Mexico
In 2010, I moved to New Mexico to teach on the Navajo Reservation. I attended a couple of Christian Navajo churches and enjoyed getting to know some of the members.
The next year, I moved to Albuquerque, where I met my husband, John. He’d been raised in the Catholic church but in high school had decided God was “for those who didn’t understand quantum physics.” He returned to the Christian faith after brutally discovering that his wife of ten years was having an affair. He divorced her when she said yes to the other man’s proposal. After having rejected God for so many years, John did a complete turn around and determined to learn everything he could about God and the Bible. He enrolled in seminary and began taking classes in Greek and Hebrew so he could read the original writings for himself.
By the time I met John, he had been fervently studying the Bible for a little over a year and already his knowledge equaled, if not surpassed, mine. John introduced me to his study method which included spending two to three hours at a time studying one passage of Scripture. I remember being completely exhausted after our first marathon study session but enjoyed the intensity of it as well. I also loved the fact that John encouraged my questions and contributed plenty of his own.
After four years of marriage, John and I felt God calling us to visit different churches in the Albuquerque area to “see His People.” Over about two years, we attended a wide variety of denominations. Although we encountered differences, we found so many more similarities. It was beautiful to see so many people worshiping God in a variety of settings.
My varied church background has given me a great appreciation for Christians around the world and the many ways in which God is worshiped. I have seen His love for people of every race, nationality, language, and denomination.
A Study on Christian Unity
My book, Striving for Unity: a Study on 1 Corinthians, addresses such issues as Christian unity, the head covering, Christian leadership and authority, spiritual gifts, singleness, marriage, and divorce.
Heart Soul Mind 