The Amish Way by Donald B. Kraybill, Steven M. Nolt, David L. Weaver-Zercher

of talking has ever done.” 12 Another writer echoes this idea: “Plain clothes and a simple quiet life are certainly a Christian testimony which can have more far-reaching good influence on others than anything that we can ever say. A testimony does not necessarily mean for us to go up to a stranger and ask if he is saved.” 13
     
    The concept of spreading the faith primarily through words strikes the Amish as hollow. They believe that the best way to judge a person’s faith is to see it lived in context, in community. Unless they are asked, putting their faith into words for people they have never met before and may never see again makes little sense to them.There is little point, in their view, to inviting someone to a personal relationship with God without requiring obedience to a church-based lifestyle.
     
    Ohio bishop David Troyer considered evangelism risky because the missionaries he observed did not follow church guidelines for daily conduct. He suspected that the unconverted would actually be better off without being exposed to such a faith, because Jesus had warned that “he who disregards one of the least commands, and teaches people so, will be rated least in the kingdom of heaven.” In that case, Troyer concluded, “it will be more tolerable at God’s judgment for the untaught heathen than for such who teach and are taught, and yet not correctly, especially for the ones who know better.”
     
    For Troyer and other Amish people, the problem with verbal evangelism is that it neglects the lengthy, formative process of submission and obedience in community. “My heart’s wish is that all people of all manner and races and tongues might come to the Christian faith and be saved,” Troyer emphasized. But verbal evangelism could simply not communicate the complete message of salvation. 14
     
    This doesn’t mean that their collective Christian witness stays within their local zip codes. It’s not uncommon for Amish groups to travel great distances to assist non-Amish people with cleanup following natural disasters, as many did following Hurricane Katrina. But Amish relief workers did not expect to convert others to the Amish way through such brief contact, even if their work was deeply appreciated. Their service was an end in itself, not an effort to proselytize. In fact, some Amish view the notion of seeking converts to one’s own church as prideful. They hope that their Christian witness will lead others to deepen or renew their own faith rather than become Amish.
     
    The worldwide media coverage of Amish forgiveness in the aftermath of the Nickel Mines schoolhouse shooting illustrates their style of witness. In the words of an Amish farmer, “Sometimes some of our people think we should do more evangelistic work or begin a prison ministry, but this forgiveness story made more of a witness for us all over the world than anything else we can ever do.” “Maybe this was God’s way to let us do some missionary work,” another member said.
     
    In Amish eyes, the effectiveness of their collective, public witness is confirmed by the millions of tourists who show an interest in their lives. In an essay titled “Learning from the Tourists,” one Lancaster County Amish man notes, “Our ways of living may seem peculiar to an outsider, but we have deep joys that are totally unknown to the world. It behooves us all to be more content with the way of life handed down to us by our forefathers who denied themselves the pleasures of the world to be good examples to their descendants.” 15
     
    So the Amish again bring us back to the core values of submission and community. These twin pillars uphold and secure the Amish way, which stands in stark contrast to other spiritual ways that grant greater priority to the individual. With its insistence that individuals submit to the community regardless of cost, the Amish way is deeply countercultural, perhaps even offensive to American sensibilities that consider