The General Conference Mennonite Church was an association of Mennonite congregations based in North America from 1860 to 2002. The conference was formed in 1860 by congregations in Iowa seeking to unite with like-minded Mennonites to pursue common goals such as higher education and mission work. The conference was especially attractive to recent Mennonite and Amish immigrants to North America and expanded considerably when thousand of Russian Mennonites arrived in North America starting in the 1870s. Conference offices were located in Winnipeg, Manitoba and North Newton, Kansas. The conference supported a seminary and several colleges. In the 1990s the conference had 64,431 members in 410 congregations in Canada, the United States and South America.^[1] After decades of increasingly closer cooperation with the Mennonite Church, the two groups reorganized into Mennonite Church Canada in 2000 and Mennonite Church USA in 2002. The Mennonites are a group of Christian Anabaptist (Re-baptizers) denominations named after and influenced by the teachings and tradition of Menno Simons (1496-1561). ... The Russian Mennonites are an ethnically Dutch group of Mennonites who traditionally spoke Plautdietsch, and who established colonies in Russia (present-day Ukraine) beginning in 1789. ... Mennonite Church Canada logo. ... Mennonite Church USA logo. ...

Background

Mennonites first came to North America as early as 1644. The first permanent settlement was in the Germantown, Pennsylvania area when a group of 34 Mennonites and Quakers from Krefeld, Germany arrived in 1683. A total of 4000 Mennonites and 200 Amish, a closely related group, settled in eastern Pennsylvania by the 1820s.^[2] This group tended to separate from their neighbors because of refusal to participate in the American Revolution, opposition to public education and rejection of religious revivalism.^[3] Germantown is the name of five places in the State of Pennsylvania and a neighborhood in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Germantown, Adams County, Pennsylvania Germantown, Cambria County, Pennsylvania Germantown, Columbia County, Pennsylvania Germantown, Franklin County, Pennsylvania Germantown, Pike County, Pennsylvania See also: Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania This is a disambiguation page — a navigational... Krefeld is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. ... Amish couple in a horse-drawn buggy in rural Holmes County, Ohio, the site of one of the largest concentrations of Amish in the United States The Amish are a denomination of Anabaptists, found primarily in the United States and Canada, noted for their restrictions on the use of modern... The American Revolution was a revolution that ended two centuries of rule of the Thirteen Colonies by the British Empire and created the modern United States of America. ... // Public education is schooling provided for the general public by the government, whether national or local, and paid for by taxes, which leads to it often being called state education. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...

In the first half of the 19th century new waves of emigration and migration brought thousands of Mennonites to Pennsylvania, Ontario, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. By the 1860s Mennonites were found in Missouri and Iowa. The recent arrivals from Europe tended to be more educated than the eastern Pennsylvania group and had adopted new ideas and practices.

These various groups of Mennonites were loosely organized. The settlements west of Pennsylvania were scattered and had difficulty communicating with each other. A concern arose independently among these congregations for a way to connect and organize families that were scattered from Ontario to the American frontier.

Franconia Conference

Mennonites in eastern Pennsylvania had organized Franconia Conference, by at least 1769^[4] which comprised of a group of 22 Mennonite congregations. Member congregations sent representatives to regular meetings where policy and membership issues were discussed and decided. Decisions were based on Biblical interpretation. The group felt no need for a written constitution and no meeting minutes were recorded.

In 1842 John H. Oberholtzer became a minister within the Franconia Conference and shortly thereafter a bishop. In this role he attended the conference sessions. As a schoolteacher and locksmith, he had greater contact with the outside world than other ministers. Early on he resisted the expectation of ministers to wear a particular style of colonial coat, preferring more contemporary attire. Observing the process the more conservative members of the conference used to apply pressure to bring him in line with their expectations, it was evident to him that a clear set of rules and a fair process would be better for the conference than relying on arbitrary interpretation of scripture passages.

At a subsequent conference session Oberholtzer proposed a set of guidelines, a minimal constitution, for the organization and suggested that minutes of meetings be recorded so that decisions would be documented. When a majority of the more influential members of the conference refused to let him even present his proposal, or distribute a printed copy, a rift developed among the conference delegates.

East Pennsylvania Conference

After attempts to reconcile the two groups failed, Oberholtzer and about a quarter of the members formed a new group, the East Pennsylvania Conference. Oberholtzer purchased a hand printing press in 1851 and set it up in his locksmith shop. He began publishing Der Religiöse Botschafter (the Religious Messenger) with a circulation of 400, the first successful Mennonite periodical in North America. The financial burden and the demands on his time ended the operation after three years. In 1856, with funding from 92 shareholders, the Mennonite Printing Union was organized and printing resumed with a periodical named Das Christliche Volksblatt. Besides the periodical, books and other material were printed at this new facility. Oberholtzer's contribution as publisher and editor was to have significant influence on Mennonites in North America.

Through wide circulation of his paper, visits to like-minded Mennonites in Ontario and Ohio and correspondence with Mennonites in Europe, Oberholtzer begin developing a network of contacts with shared interests. These Mennonites were more open to interaction with other Christians and were interested in education and mission work. Volksblatt published reports from among the scattered North American Mennonites and from the more educated Mennonites in Europe.

Oberholtzer was particularly interested in organizing Mennonites in Ohio, Ontario and Pennsylvania for the purpose of ministering to Mennonite families scattered throughout the region. He proposed a union based on a basic set of ideals: the doctrine of salvation in Christ, the sacraments, good works and freedom in externals.^[5] Although formal organization did not materialize, this type of cooperation was an ongoing theme in Volksblatt.

Organizing and Gathering

In the 1850s the Mennonite congregations of Franklin Center and West Point in Lee County, Iowa adopted a common constitution in order to cooperate in various projects, stressing the desire to preserve the religious faith of the small frontier groups of Mennonites. At their 1859 conference meeting a resolution was adopted to invite other like-minded Mennonites to join this union in order to promote home and foreign missions.^[6] This invitation was extended to all Mennonites and published in Volksblatt. Lee County is a county located in the state of Iowa. ...

At a meeting the following year, four individual from outside the local congregations attended the gathering, including one from Ontario and Oberholtzer from Pennsylvania. An association of Mennonite congregations was proposed that would accept any congregation, regardless of other connections, that held a basic set of Mennonite beliefs: baptism, non-swearing of oaths and the authority of Scripture. Complete freedom was to be permitted in all matters not explicitly taught in the Scriptures.^[7] Although Mennonite beliefs such as rejection of violence were not specifically mentioned, these were assumed to be covered by the authority of Scripture. This article is in need of attention. ... An oath (from Old Saxon eoth) is either a promise or a statement of fact calling upon something or someone that the oath maker considers sacred, usually a god, as a witness to the binding nature of the promise or the truth of the statement of fact. ...

Agreement in essentials and freedom in nonessentials was the formula for uniting congregations that varied widely in custom and practice. This formal organizational meeting on 1860-05-29 is considered the beginning of the General Conference Mennonite Church. The minutes of the meeting refer to the group as Conference Minutes of the General Mennonite Community of North America (translated from German).^[8] 1860 is the leap year starting on Sunday. ... May 29 is the 149th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (150th in leap years). ...

The group resolved to organize a mission society, establish a training school for Christian workers, form a historical society and print tracts. Daniel Hege was appointed to travel among Mennonite communities in the United States and Canada to promote cooperation for mission work and education.^[9]

Higher Education

Through the contacts made by Hege in the year after the 1860 meeting, other Mennonite communities became interested in the new conference. The East Pennsylvania group joined the conference in 1861, shortly after Hege's visit. Hege also raised nearly $6000 for the proposed school. Within ten years the General Conference had 1500 members from 20 congregations.^[10]

Plans to create a school for training pastors and missionaries proceeded rapidly. A site was chosen in Wadsworth, Ohio and the school was constructed and dedicated in 1866. Wadsworth Institute was opened on 1868-01-02 with twenty-four students enrolled in a three-year program of study. Wadsworth was the first Mennonite institution of higher learning in North America and trained a generation of church leaders. The school operated for eleven years before it fell into financial difficulty. The conference had several other competing concerns, including supporting mission work and resettling thousands of Mennonite immigrants from Russia who started arriving in the 1870s. Wadsworth Institute was a Mennonite seminary in Wadsworth, Ohio from 1868 to 1878. ... 1868 (MDCCCLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a leap year starting on Friday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar. ... January 2 is the second day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...

The arriving Mennonites had a century of experience running schools in Russia. By 1882 they opened Emmental, a training school for teachers north of Newton, Kansas, which was moved to Halstead, Kansas in 1883. The school was closed for the 1892–1893 school year while preparations were made to relocate it to North Newton, Kansas where it opened as Bethel College in 1893. Other schools followed: Mennonite Collegiate Institute^[11] (Gretna, Manitoba, 1899), Bluffton College (Bluffton, Ohio, 1898; now Bluffton University), Freeman Junior College^[12] (Freeman, South Dakota, 1903–1986), English-German Academy (Rosthern, Saskatchewan, 1905) which became Rosthern Junior College^[13] (1946), and Canadian Mennonite Bible College (Winnipeg, Manitoba, 1947) which combined with Concord College and Menno Simons College in 1998 to become Canadian Mennonite University.^[14] Newton is a city and county seat of Harvey County, Kansas. ... Halstead is a city located in Harvey County, Kansas. ... North Newton is a city located in Harvey County, Kansas. ... Bethel College is a private college affiliated with Mennonite Church USA. The college is located on the edge of the Flint Hills and vast wheat fields of south central Kansas in the town of North Newton. ... Bluffton is a village located in Allen county in Ohio. ... Bluffton University (Bluffton, Ohio) is a four-year educational institution affiliated with Mennonite Church USA. The university also offers the following graduate degrees: Master of Business Administration, Master of Arts in Organizational Management, and Master of Arts in Education. ... Freeman is a city located in Hutchinson County, South Dakota. ... Rosthern is a town at the juncture of Hwy #11 and Hwy #312 in Saskatchewan, Canada. ... Template:Hide = Motto: Template:Unhide = Unum Cum Virtute Multorum (One With the Strength of Many) Established: {{{Established}}} Area: 465. ...

In 1914 Mennonite Central College was reorganized into Bluffton College and Mennonite Seminary. The seminary was renamed Witmarsum^[15] Theological Seminary in 1921 and provided training for church workers until it was closed in 1931. In 1945 Mennonite Biblical Seminary was started in Chicago, Illinois. The seminary was associated with Bethany Biblical Seminary, a Church of the Brethren institution. In 1958 Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary was formed when the seminary joined with Goshen College Biblical Seminary, a Mennonite Church school in Goshen, Indiana. An Elkhart, Indiana site was chosen as a neutral location between the two previous schools. Originally planned as two separate institutions sharing common facilities, the seminary functioned in practice as a single school after the first decade. Bethany Theological Seminary was founded in 1905 and is the graduate school and academy for theological education for the Church of the Brethren. ... The Church of the Brethren was organized by Alexander Mack, a miller, in Schwarzenau, Germany, in 1708. ... Goshen College Goshen College is a Mennonite liberal arts college in Goshen, Indiana with an enrollment of around 1,000 students. ... Goshen, Indiana is a town of 29,383 people (As of the 2000 census). ... Elkhart is a city located in Elkhart County, Indiana. ...

Mission Work

A mission board was formed shortly after the 1860 creation of the conference. Its initial work consisted primarily of promoting missions and collecting funds. The mission board explored sending mission workers to Java under an existing program of European Mennonites. When it became clear that the Europeans were not interested in working jointly with the new conference, the board decided to focus on working independently of existing mission organizations. Since the Lausanne Congress of 1974, a widely-accepted definition of a Christian mission has been to form a viable indigenous church-planting movement. ...

The first mission worker, Samuel S. Haury, was sent to Darlington and Cantonment in Indian Territory (later Oklahoma) in 1880 to work among the Arapaho. He was followed in 1884 by Henry R. Voth who worked with the Hopi. Rudolphe Petter spent fifteen years in Indian Territory and then worked with the Cheyenne in Montana for the rest of his life. Indian Territory in 1836 Indian Territory in 1891 Indian Territory, also known as Indian Country, Indian territory or the Indian territories, was the land set aside within the United States for the use of American Indians (Native Americans). The general borders were set by the Indian Intercourse Act of 1834. ... Scabby Bull, Arapaho 1806 Arapaho camp, ca. ... Hopi woman dressing hair of unmarried girl Part of a Hopi pueblo Hopi House near Grand Canyon, stereoptical view c. ... The Cheyenne are a Native American nation of the Great Plains. ...

The first mission workers sent overseas were Elizabeth and Peter A. Penner of Mountain Lake, Minnesota along with J. F. and Susanna Kroeker, arriving in Bombay 1900-12-09,^[16] to start work in India. Schoolteacher Annie C. Funk arrived in India in 1906, becoming the first single woman Mennonite mission worker. Funk returned home on her first furlough in 1912 on RMS Titanic, losing her life when she gave up her seat on the last lifeboat to a mother with children.^[17] Henry J. Brown, another worker from Mountain Lake, was the first conference missionary in China. Arriving in December 1909 without formal support, his work was approved by the conference in 1914. Later areas of work included Taiwan, Japan, Zaire, Colombia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil, Bolivia, and Costa Rica. Mountain Lake is a city located in Cottonwood County, Minnesota. ... 1900 (MCM) was an exceptional common year starting on Monday. ... December 9 is the 343rd day (344th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... RMS Titanic was the second of a trio of superliners intended to dominate the transatlantic travel business. ...

Another aspect of outreach was home missions, which began among scattered Mennonite communities in North America that were without pastoral leadership. This work was expanded to working with Mennonites in Mexico and South America. City missions were developed in Los Angeles, Chicago, Altoona (Pennsylvania) and Hutchinson (Kansas).^[18] Patterned after the work of other denominations, preaching, home visitation, Sunday Schools and work with children were emphasized.

District Conferences

The congregations of the General Conference Mennonite Church were organized into provincial conferences in Canada and five area conferences in the United States. Nearly all congregations where associated with an area conference while a few were members of the General Conference directly.

The Eastern District Conference initially consisted of churches from the East Pennsylvania Conference that joined the General Conference in 1861. In 1999 it had 28 congregations in Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts. The Western District Conference was organized in 1888 by combining the western part of an earlier organized Western Conference and an earlier organized Kansas conference. In 1999 it had 80 congregations in Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado. The Northern District Conference was organized in 1894. In 1999 it had 33 congregations in Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska.

The Pacific District Conference was organized in 1896. By 1999 the southern part had joined with the Southwest Mennonite Conference of the Mennonite Church to become the Pacific Southwest Mennonite Conference, which consisted of 56 congregations in Mexico, Arizona, California and Florida.^[19] The northern part joined with Pacific Coast Conference of the Mennonite Church to become the Pacific Northwest Mennonite Conference, which had 32 congregations in Oregon, Washington and Idaho.

The Central District Conference was formed in 1956 by combining Central Illinois Mennonite Conference and former Middle District. The Central Illinois Conference was made up of twenty congregations of Amish descent that joined the General Conference in 1946. In 1999 the Central District had 67 congregations in Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, Missouri, Indiana, Kentucky, Wisconsin and Michigan.

The Conference of Mennonites in Canada was an organization of Canadian churches that related to the General Conference Mennonite Church. The Canadian conference was itself divided into separate conferences for British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. About a quarter of the congregations within these area conferences chose not to affiliate with the General Conference, a pattern in contrast to the United States conferences where almost all area conference congregations were also General Conference members.

The Canadian conference began as the Conference of Mennonites in Middle Canada and was created 1903 to help Bergthaler Mennonites who were moving west from Manitoba, many to the Rosthern, Saskatchewan area. Bergthalers were originally from five entire villages of Russian Mennonites who had all migrated together. They were a more conservative group who preferred to run their own affairs, including schools.

One of earliest activities was to provide and coordinate training for teachers. Mennonite Collegiate Institute (Gretna, Manitoba, 1899) was soon followed by Mennonite Educational Institute (Altona, Manitoba) and the German-English Academy (Rosthern, Saskatchewan, 1905, now Rosthern Junior College). Strong support for schools continued through the history of the conference, which by the 1990s included these additional schools: Canadian Mennonite Bible College (Winnipeg, Manitoba), Columbia Bible College (Clearbrook, British Columbia), Conrad Grebel College (Waterloo, Ontario), Swift Current Bible Institute (Swift Current, Saskatchewan), United Mennonite Education Institute (Leamington, Ontario) and Westgate Mennonite Collegiate (Winnipeg, Manitoba). Altona (49°06′N 097°33′W) is a small mennonite town in southern Manitoba about 100 km south-west of Winnipeg and 133 km north of Grand Forks, North Dakota. ... Map of Waterloo Regional Municipality, Ontario with Waterloo in red. ... Swift Current is a small city Where Life Makes Sense in the southwestern region of Saskatchewan, Canada. ... Map of Essex County with Leamington in red Leamington is a municipality in Essex County, Ontario and has a population of about 25,000. ...

From 1923 to 1930 an additional 21,000^[20] Mennonites arrived in Canada from Russia. The Canadian Board of Mennonite Colonization borrowed 1.9 million dollars to aid in the resettlement of these new immigrants. Many of these arrivals were settled on farms in Alberta and Saskatchewan. This group of Mennonites tended to be more urbanized and better educated than the Canadian Mennonites, and were drawn to Canada's cities. Winnipeg, Manitoba became the city with the largest population of Mennonites. After World War II 8000 more Russian Mennonites came to Canada.

Expansion and Programs

The initial conference goals of education and mission work were well under way by the 1920s. World War II brought new challenges. Conscientious objectors from Canadian congregations were serving in Alternative Service projects, primarily in western Canada and then later closer to home on farms and in industry. In the United States, 828 men (almost 50 percent) from General Conference churches served in Civilian Public Service (CPS). The conference raised $500,000^[22] over six years to pay for its share of the program as it cooperated with other peace churches in the administration of these camps. The CPS experience created a generation of church leaders and continued an ongoing process of inter-Mennonite cooperation. A conscientious objector is an individual whose personal beliefs are incompatible with military service, perhaps with any role in the armed forces or just with a particular war. ... Civilian Public Service (CPS) provided conscientious objectors in the United States an alternative to military service during World War II. From 1941 to 1947 nearly 12,000 draftees, unwilling to do any type of military service, performed work of national importance in 152 CPS camps throughout the United States and... Peace churches are Christian churches, groups or communities advocating pacifism. ...

In addition to the creation of a new seminary, the post-war years saw the expansion of existing work and new projects. Work on the Mennonite Encyclopedia was started in 1946 in cooperation with the Mennonite Church. The goal was to complete the German Mennonitisches Lexikon and then translate and rewrite it into a suitable English version. The first volume was completed in 1955 and the fourth volume of the 3827 page work in 1959. A fifth supplementary volume was produced in 1990 with new and updated information.

Throughout its history, the General Conference Mennonite Church organizational structure was divided among various committees, boards and commissions. In its final years, these included Commission on Education to oversee various educational activities and interests, Commission on Home Ministries which worked with mission activities in North America such as church planting and helping other Mennonite groups in Central and South America, Commission on Overseas Mission which dealt with overseas mission activities, Higher Education Council which worked with Mennonite colleges, Faith & Life Press which was the publishing and printing agency of the conference, Ministerial Leadership Services which worked with ministerial leadership and congregations and Division of General Services which oversaw the financial and business aspects of running the conference. Conference offices were maintained in Winnipeg, Manitoba and North Newton, Kansas. The conference printed two periodicals: the Mennonite and Der Bote, which reached ninety percent of members' homes^[23]

Cooperation and Reorganization

Starting in the 1940s the General Conference Mennonite Church and the Mennonite Church worked on several cooperative projects. Among these were Civilian Public Service and Mennonite Central Committee, which oversaw the Mennonite part of the CPS. In the 1950s the two groups created Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary together. Joint hymnal projects were completed in 1969 (The Mennonite Hymnal) and 1992 (Hymnal a Worshipbook). A joint Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective^[24] was completed in 1995. Mennonite Central Committee logo. ...

Another force in the movement towards uniting the two groups was simultaneously happening at the grassroots level. As Mennonites moved from rural areas, they formed new urban congregations, bringing together people from both denominations. These congregations would then seek affiliation in area conferences of both denominations. By the 1990s there were dozens of these dual-affiliated congregations. As cooperation between the two groups increased, overlapping area conferences began looking at ways to work together and plan for an inevitable merger.

The increasing cooperation occurred in parallel with discussions about joining the two groups. Starting in 1983, the two groups met together in joint delegate sessions from time to time. By 1989 an intentional effort was underway to devise a plan for merging the two organizations, which culminated in a 1999 delegate session where a new joint structure was approved. The transformation was completed soon thereafter in Canada and by 2002 in the United States. The two groups, General Conference Mennonite Church and Mennonite Church, became two new national groups: Mennonite Church Canada and Mennonite Church USA. Mennonite Church Canada logo. ... Mennonite Church USA logo. ...

Notes

1. ↑ Mennonite Directory, p. 16
2. ↑ Dyck p. 196
3. ↑ Pannabecker p. 12
4. ↑ Kaufman p. 5
5. ↑ Pannabecker p. 37
6. ↑ Pannabecker p. 44.
7. ↑ Pannabecker p. 49.
8. ↑ Pannabecker p. 48-49.
9. ↑ Dyck p. 258.
10. ↑ Dyck p. 259
11. ↑ Mennonite Collegiate Institute official website.
12. ↑ Freeman Academy continues to operate as a grade 8 – 12 high school.
13. ↑ Rosthern Junior College official website.
14. ↑ Canadian Mennonite University official website.
15. ↑ The name refers to Witmarsum, the birthplace of Menno Simons.
16. ↑ Pannabecker p. 295.
17. ↑ Pannabecker p. 295.
18. ↑ Pannabecker p. 205.
19. ↑ Directory p. 146. Geographical proximity is not a requirement for conference membership!
20. ↑ Dyck, p. 261
21. ↑ Directory, pp. 73-92.
22. ↑ Pannabecker p. 258.
23. ↑ Pannabecker p. 347.
24. ↑ Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective

Wûnseradiel is a municipality in the Fryslân province of the northern Netherlands, at the eastern end of the Afsluitdijk. ... Menno Simons (1496–1561) was an Anabaptist religious leader from the Dutch province of Friesland. ...

References

• Dyck, Cornelius J. (1993). An Introduction to Mennonite History, Third Edition, Chapter 14 The General Conference Mennonite Church, pp. 252-276, Herald Press. ISBN 0-8361-3620-9
• Kaufman, Edmund G. (1973), General Conference Mennonite Pioneers, Bethel College, North Newton, Kansas.
• Mennonite Directory (1999), Herald Press. ISBN 0-8361-9454-3
• Pannabecker, Samuel Floyd (1975), Open Doors: A History of the General Conference Mennonite Church, Faith and Life Press. ISBN 0-87303-636-0