My mom doesn't drive and my father was so nervy that I only went out with him once. I never got a licence as a teen and it's been much harder to work out getting one now that I'm an adult. My dh takes me out driving for driving practice and that's been a real test for our marriage! I'm not a good driver. I guess that excuses me from teaching my children - hahaha! I guess there's a silver lining to not having a licence.

Does anyone know where I can get samples of other people's cursive? I want my older two to have a little more experience reading cursive then just mine and dh's. Ours are both conventional so they've had trouble reading other peoples'.

I'm passionately pacifist too. Jesus certainly was. I'm probably in the middle of the Anabaptist spectrum. Too conservative for some and too liberal for others (I have a computer!). What I meant by evangelical is just that they are not liturgical or charismatic in style. I think that you would probably be best to go and watch. If they jump on you when you arrive then you can probably know that they are too evangelistic for your liking. A really liberal Mennonite church may or may not be evangelistic. It probably depends on their background historically. If they're all descendants of conservative Mennonites then they're probably not as conservative Mennonite don't tend to be very evangelistic (there are some exceptions). If they've had a lot of mainstream Evangelicals join their group then they may be. My gut instinct is that they're probably not since you mentioned their acceptance of homosexual marriage. They probably like to leave people to their own path.

I was raised secular. My mom is a closet Christian but my dad is an agnostic-anti-christian. Where I grew up was very secular compared to anywhere in the US, even OR :). When I was a teenager I was introduced to a youth group by a friend of mine. It was in a liberal run-of-the-mill Evangelical church. In school I was horribly ostracized but was less so in youth group. I suspect it was just a culture difference not that they were nicer because of spiritual reasons. I was attracted enough to continue going. I decided shortly after going that I wanted to join. My friend informed that I needed to "pray a prayer" to be on the inside. She rounded up the pastor, we found a corner and I prayed "the sinners prayer." It all seemed really weird but I trusted it. I'm a little jaded now about this experience but it was a start for me. Anyway, I'm maybe a little on the spectrum, but I can't be two-faced. I am what you see. I don't like it in other either. I threw myself into the church and the Bible headlong. It didn't take long for me to become annoyed at the hypocrisy that surrounded me but I persisted. A few years later I met my dh in the church. He was also zealous. We strived together to try to make people more serious about what they were doing. I'm sure that we were thoroughly annoying! Since we've been married we've made some hops that have led us away from standard Evangelical churches towards more Anabaptist groups. We've become more literal in our understanding of Jesus' words. We're attracted to the Anabaptists (fringe ones more than the established groups) because they tend to take Jesus literally. For example, when Jesus says, "Do not resist an evil-doer" and to "Love your enemies" they tend to go as far as possible with this to the point of not going to war or even using self-defence. This is appealing to us because otherwise we feel like we're playing a pick and chose game with the words of the one that we claim to be our king. I hope wasn't offence. I tried to avoid being polemic. I'm passionate but what I mentioned but I want to respect others' journey as well. These topics are so hard to not make offensive because we all believe that we are right. I really want to hear others' stories as well so lets not soil this thread with in fighting. Start a new thread if someone offends you.

My 4yo looks through our collection over and over and over again. He just loves the images of culture. When I was a girl I thought that they were the most boring magazines in the universe. TV probably spoiled me.

We use a rubbermaid bin. When we lived in the city I used this system for shopping and library trips: I just used a bike lock to lock the dolly to the bike racks and would take the bins inside. In our library there are a bunch of really old older children's books that the library hasn't bar coded because no one has taken them out in ages. Our family always seems to pick out one these books. I've taken out books that were last checked out in the 1970's. The sad thing about it is that some of those books are the best books in the library. They just don't have all the flashy pictures like DK books.

The encyclopedia thread got me thinking. This is just pure curiosity. Who would take a box of old (say 1970ish) N. Geographics? We love these mag and would take them in a heart beat but not the encyclopedias.

We had to institute a similar rule here when my two older ones were little. Our rule has been that they must not touch anyone of the opposite gender unless one of the children is younger than 6. This has even been applied to my two older ones between themselves. When they were younger they wrestled freely but at some point it became weird to watch them grapple together. They are so close with one another that they'll talk less than one foot from each other's face. I think that they were having a hard time not transferring that sort of intimacy to their relationships with other children and were taking too many liberties that we had to make a big broad sweeping rule like we did.

I sleep with a rayon scarf/shawl over my eyes. A sleep mask would probably be more comfortable but this does the trick. When it's light out I can't sleep without something over my eyes, even if it's just a t-shirt.

They're lying in ditches with the odd shoes that are so often on their own.

Liberal Mennonites churches are very similar to regular evangelical churches except that they are typically pacifist. You can expect contemporary music, regular clothing and normal meeting structure. I agree with Laurie that church size probably plays the biggest factor in how greeted you will be. Give it a try. The worst that could happen is you have an awkward experience to laugh at in the future.

My dd and ds just read it for themselves. They both really enjoyed it. They've been pleading with me to download the librivox version for them.

I never mention the board IRL either but something she said here made me think that our church circles probably very closely overlapped so I inquired in a PM about who she was and that's how we figured things out.

Generally no but if they're broke I would probably buy some groceries to contribute.

The Eastern Orthodox numbers really surprise me. I didn't realize how much they were represented here.

I just discovered that I may have met PlainMom a few years ago at a fellowship meeting. Have you ever realized that you've actually met someone from the boards in real life without knowing it at the time? The world seems so small sometimes.

That's awkward!

Nope, I'm Anabaptist. :) We're unaffiliated but we would probably best fit with a Charity church. About my avatar, I just really like the victorious lamb symbol and this one was public domain.

This is my understanding too.

You have to vote on each question. Just choose the "My choice is on one of the other lists" option. My purpose was curiosity and to see if there were any others who fell into my camp. :)

Most Anabaptist groups, excluding the liberal ones, do not recognize any marriage but the first unless the first spouse died or unless the first spouse was not a legitimate spouse. For an example, if a woman marries a divorced man that first marriage would be considered illegitimate. Some groups would allow remarriage in this situation while others won't. As far as I'm aware all groups would accept a divorced woman who is currently single. Some groups would want her to seek reconciliation with a legitimate spouse though.

8ish

Added JW's. I simply went off the wiki list. That wasn't an intentional oversight.

I took my list from the contents list on this wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations. You can probably find your denomination on that page and see what it is categorized under there. If I've missed anything please let me know. Also, some of you might prefer to be unaffiliated with a denomination but for the sake of trying to get a picture of where the Christians on this board sit just pick what group that would match you the best. You have to vote in each question so just choose the "My choice is on another list" option for the two lists that don't contain your choice.

We do Bible memory work here. Almost every morning during family devotions we review the memory work that we're either currently working on or a previous passage that we've memorized. My 4yo mostly just listens but occasionally wants a turn to try to recite what is being worked on. It's actually quite surprising to hear what he's passively picked up. He can recite large portion, also accurately, with only a few prompts of Matt 5. He can do a number of other passages quite well too. My plan is that when he's around six we'll add him to the rotation for the recitations. We'll just prompt him along until he's caught up.