Vernon Community, Hestand

Vernon Community in Hestand, Kentucky is home to a Christian Plain dress, horse and buggy community, that was founded in 1996 by Simon Beachy, former leader of the "Believers in Christ" in Lobelville, Tennessee. The Christian community is classified as "para-Amish" by G.C. Waldrep.

In 1973 families from a small Reformed Amish Church in Arkansas founded a community at Lobelville, Tennessee, later called "Believers in Christ". The intention was to create a heartfelt primitive Christianity like in the beginning of the Anabaptist movement. The community attracted many people from Amish, Old Order Mennonite, Old German Baptist backgrounds as well as people from non-plain churches, so-called seekers.

The group struggled to hold together until Simon Beachy, a charismatic personality of Old Order Amish background, arrived. Beachy's central theme was "true brokenness". Beachy also rejected the idea of having an Ordnung (set of rules) like almost all other Old Order communities. In 1996 Beachy left the community at Lobelville to create a new one at Hestand with hand-picked followers.

The Christian community at Hestand is an independent community with many Amish features, like Plain dress, horse and buggy transportation, no telephones etc., but without fellowship with other Amish communities. It has a "lower strictness level" than the Noah Hoover Mennonites of Scottsville, Kentucky or the Caneyville Christian Community.

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