In the year 1517, a Catholic monk in Germany named Martin Luther, advocated church reform and new doctrines. Several German princes supported him, but government and religion still operated together. A group of Christians in Zurich, Switzerland, believed government and religion should be completely separate. They also believed that Christians should model themselves after the Beatitudes that Jesus of Nazareth discussed in his Sermon on the Mount, which discusses being "peacemake

After the sermon, a meal is prepared by the women. Women and girls eat last. Then follows a time for socialization and fellowship. Leaving early is considered rude.

A family will host church services once or twice a year. Each church district is self-governing and has boundary lines that enclose a few square miles. This means that there could be up to two hundred people at a church service. A set of wooden benches for seating is transported by horse drawn wagon to the home. Service begins at 8 or 9 in the morning. Men and women enter the house by separate doors and sit apart. Young children sit with parents of the same sex. Bishops, ministers and deacons of the church are all men. The congregation has two or three ministers who give the sermons. The deacon reads scripture and leads prayers. The service lasts about three hours, consisting of hymns, two sermons, scripture readings and prayers.

Level four is a six-week ban. The congregation avoids social contact with the offender. The person is allowed to attend services, but must leave immediately after. After six weeks, the offender must confess their sin and promise to work with the church. The offender is then reinstated.

A strong sense of family, community, and security is not always present in modern day life, as we may know it. I believe this is why the Amish population continues to grow and thrive.

The ritual of confession is about humility and healing. The church, rather than the member initiate most Amish confessions. There are four different levels of confession, beginning with private. The bishop becomes aware of a violation through observation or gossip. The bishop then asks the deacon to visit the violating member. If it is a minor violation and the member shows sorrow, it can be resolved and dropped at this stage. Public confession is required in levels two and three, or setting and kneeling respectively. The violating member is brought to a special members meeting. The ministers discuss the problem privately, and then the bishop proposes punishment. A hearing is held in front of the congregation where the bishop asks questions and the member gets to explain or defend him or herself. Afterwards, the offender steps outside while the congregation decides if they agree with the punishment. The offender is then called back in and the punishment is publicly announced. The person must then publicly promise to abide by the Ordnung, or rules of the district, in the future.

rs" and "clean of heart". Another belief was that church members should be baptized as adults, when they have a true commitment to Christianity. So this small group re-baptized each other. This earned them the name "Anabaptists", which started out as a nickname meaning "re-baptizer" (Inge, 2000). Within a few decades, the Anabaptists in northern Europe became known as the Mennonites, named after the Roman Catholic priest Menno Simons. By the late 1600's, the Anabaptists still maintained their goal of remaining separate from the world, but Jakob Ammann, a Swiss church elder, thought the discipline

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