Here are some poignant remarks shared during my father's memorial service (on 11-5-06 at the Yellow Creek Mennonite Church) by long-time friend, Harold Bauman, along with further information, at the end, about how to obtain the book he alluded to in those remarks. -Clair
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How does one explain Dean Hochstetler -- a man of many paradoxes?
1. Provincial community and world citizen. He was raised in a Mennonite home in a community with large Amish population in which he saw the occult and its consequences. However, he traveled to 40 plus countries at the invitation of church leaders and missionaries to teach in regard to deliverance ministry and to do it.
2. Limited formal education yet well-educated. His formal education ended at high school graduation. He had three siblings who did college and graduate work. Dean read theology, therapists’ writings and writing by psychiatrists and deliverance ministers. Dean was self-educated with a library of more than a 1000 books which will go to a deliverance minister. Dean commented to me on more than one occasion that he thought if he had a degree after his name he would have been listened to more.
3. He was a pioneer in deliverance ministry in his own denomination who received more invitations from seminaries and pastors’ groups from other denominations than from his own. His determination to do what he saw God calling him to do and the people he was equipping and setting free in the face of criticism kept him at his work. Those were hard days. More than once he raised the question with me whether we should stay within the Mennonite framework. Regardless, he had a vision to train people to do deliverance work who would carry on after he was no long able to do it. Eight days before his death he invited the first class to his home and, reading of Elijah giving his mantle to Elisha, he transferred his ministry to Delora Reinhardt, a very effective leader of a deliverance ministry team in this congregation. That evening in a more family focused group he transferred his mantle to Ben and Angela Snyder, also of this congregation. A number of other persons have been trained and are doing deliverance ministry work. How thankful I am that he had the vision to train others and acted upon it. He carried a deep concern that our seminaries train pastors to understand spiritual warfare, to know and discern the occult and the schemes of Satan, and when gifted and trained to do deliverance ministry.
I believe that God worked through Dean in a way that Paul wrote to the Corinthians, as paraphrased by Peterson, “Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”? To all of his critics Dean could have said, “I like the way God is using me to set men and women free better than the way you are not doing it.”
4. For the record, let me add a fourth paradox: the public ministry and the private ministry. In public ministry his large stature and strong voice could easily convey that he was dogmatic and unsympathetic. In his private deliverance ministry he was gentle and empathetic, moving only as fast as the person was ready to move. Truly, his bark was much worse than his bite!
I thank God for Dean’s and Edna’s lives and ministries that have directly and indirectly blessed thousands of people. I am very grateful that in the consultation on “Hard Cases” at the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries in April 2004 that Dean’s ministry was validated. The book growing out of that consultation contains much of Dean’s guidance for doing deliverance ministry and the diagnostic instrument he developed: Even the Demons Submit - Continuing Jesus' Ministry of Deliverance is dedicated to Dean.
Harold Bauman 11-05-06
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Here is how to obtain this new book:
Even the Demons Submit: Continuing Jesus' Ministry of Deliverance is available from the publisher, Institute of Mennonite Studies, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, 3003 Benham Ave, Elkhart, IN 46517; e-mail: ims@ambs.edu or phone 574-296-6239. The price per copy is $15.95. Note: A 20% discount is available from the IMS office for quantities of five or more to the same address. Shipping and handling for books purchased from IMS is $3 for the first copy (to a US address), and $1 for each additional copy. Mennonite Cooperative Bookstore on the AMBS campus also has individual copies for sale.
Click here for detailed information about this book, including endorsements.
It can also be purchased here from the co-publisher: Herald Press, 616 Walnut Avenue, Scottdale, PA 15683 or phone: 1-800-245-78940.
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