Mennonite Church USA


The Mennonite Church USA is an Anabaptist Christian denomination in the United States. Although the organization is a recent 2002 merger of the Mennonite Church and the General Conference Mennonite Church, the body has roots in the Radical Reformation of the 16th century.
Total membership in Mennonite Church USA denominations decreased from about 133,000, before the merger in 1998, to a total membership of 120,381 in the Mennonite Church USA in 2001 and 78,892 members in 2016. In May 2021 the main page of their website stated a membership of about 62,000.

History

Mennonite Church (MC) (Mennonite General Conference and Mennonite General Assembly)

Dutch and German immigrants from Krefeld, Germany, settled in Germantown, Pennsylvania, in 1683. Swiss Mennonites came to North America in the early part of the 18th century. Their first settlements were in Pennsylvania, then in Virginia and Ohio. These Swiss immigrants, combined with Dutch and German Mennonites and progressive Amish Mennonites who later united with them, until 2002 made up the largest body of Mennonites in North America. They formed regional conferences in the 18th century. As early as 1725, delegates from various Pennsylvania Mennonite settlements met to adopt the Dordrecht Confession of Faith as their official statement of faith. The "Old" Mennonite Church was marked by ties of communion, pulpit exchange, and common confession, rather than formal organizational ties. Many, but not all, of the conferences joined the North American conference, the Mennonite General Conference, in 1898. The Mennonite General Conference was reorganized in 1971 as the Mennonite General Assembly. The Mennonite General Assembly merged with the General Conference Mennonite Church in 2002.

General Conference Mennonite Church (GCMC)

The General Conference Mennonite Church was an association of Mennonite congregations located 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 thousands 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. By the 1980s, there remained little difference between the General Conference Mennonite Church and many conferences in the Mennonite General Assembly. In the 1990s the conference had 64,431 members in 410 congregations in Canada, the United States and South America.

Merger

In 1983 the General Assembly of the Mennonite Church met jointly with the General Conference Mennonite Church in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in celebration of 300 years of Mennonite witness in the Americas. Beginning in 1989, a series of consultations, discussions, proposals, and sessions led to the unification of these two major North American Mennonite bodies into one denomination organized on two fronts – the Mennonite Church USA and the Mennonite Church Canada. The merger was "finalized" at a joint session in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1999, and the Canadian branch moved quickly ahead. The United States branch did not complete their organization until the meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2001, which became effective February 1, 2002.
The merger of 1999-2002 at least partially fulfilled the desire of the founders of the General Conference Mennonite Church to create an organization under which all Mennonites could unite. Yet not all Mennonites favored the merger. The Alliance of Mennonite Evangelical Congregations represents one expression of the disappointment with the merger and the events that led up to it.

Decline

Since its merger, a large number of conservative congregations have left Mennonite Church USA. 2013 saw nine congregations leave, and in 2014 at least 12 did so. In November 2015, the Lancaster Conference, Mennonite Church USA's largest conference, with 13,838 members in 163 congregations in six states plus the District of Columbia, voted overwhelmingly to leave the denomination by the end of 2017.
By early 2016 the membership had decreased to 78,892 members. This decline was generally attributed to the denomination's increasingly liberal position towards same sex marriage, among other issues, which caused many congregations to leave Mennonite Church USA. In April 2016, the Franklin Mennonite Conference, a conference with 14 congregations and about 1,000 members in Pennsylvania and Maryland, voted to withdraw from the Mennonite Church USA. In 2018 the number of baptized members had fallen to 69,223 and the number congregations to 625.

Political Involvement

For most of its history, the Mennonite Church has stayed away from political involvement. This came from a desire to separate the church from the culture of the world. In 1968 Mennonite Central Committee, the governing body for the Mennonite Church, created an advocacy office in Washington, DC. This was a drastic shift in how the church approached politics and was not appreciated by many members at the time. Since then, the church has become more politically involved as this became more normalized.

Structure

Convention and delegate assembly

Every other year, Mennonite Church USA holds a week-long, church-wide convention. The convention includes gatherings for adults, youth, junior youth and children. During the convention, there are worship sessions, seminars, alumni gatherings, and special dinners. Also, taking place during the convention is the Delegate Assembly. Delegates from local congregations, regional area conferences, and constituency groups gather to develop vision and direction for the national denomination. Previous conventions have been held in Nashville, Tennessee, Atlanta, Georgia, Charlotte, North Carolina, San Jose, California, Columbus, Ohio, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Phoenix, Arizona, Kansas City, Missouri, and Orlando, Florida.

Area conferences

All congregations in the denomination belong to an area conference, and it is the area conference that is the component part of Mennonite Church USA. There are currently 21 area conferences with many of them overlapping geographically due to conference structures prior to the merger. Recently, some divisions have occurred and the Lancaster Conference voted in 2015 to leave the Mennonite Church U.S.A. by 2017.
  • Allegheny Mennonite Conference
  • Atlantic Coast Conference
  • Central District Conference
  • Central Plains Mennonite Conference
  • Eastern District Conference
  • Mosaic Mennonite Conference
  • Franklin Mennonite Conference
  • Gulf States Mennonite Conference
  • Illinois Mennonite Conference
  • Indiana-Michigan Mennonite Conference
  • *Prairie Street Mennonite Church
  • Mountain States Mennonite Conference
  • New York Mennonite Conference
  • North Central Conference of the Mennonite Church
  • Ohio Conference of the Mennonite Church
  • *Oak Grove Mennonite Church
  • Pacific Northwest Mennonite Conference
  • Pacific Southwest Mennonite Conference
  • South Central Mennonite Conference
  • Southeast Mennonite Conference
  • Virginia Mennonite Conference
  • Western District Conference
  • *Alexanderwohl Mennonite Church

    Agencies

Mennonite Church USA maintains five church-wide ministry agencies: Mennonite Mission Network, Mennonite Education Agency, MennoMedia, Mennonite Health Services, and Everence.

Mennonite Education Agency

The mission of Mennonite Education Agency is to strengthen the life, witness and identity of Mennonite Church USA through education. MEA helps provide leadership to Mennonite Schools Council, elementary and secondary schools throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, and Canada. MEA also helps bring support and leadership to Mennonite colleges, universities, and seminaries located throughout the United States. It also works with various people and groups within Mennonite Church USA to help involve them and show the unique qualities of Mennonite education. MEA works with Mennonite Church USA to provide leadership to church educational programs.

Colleges and seminaries

Mennonite Church USA provides denominational oversight through Mennonite Education Agency to five colleges and universities and two seminaries in the United States:

''Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective''

A Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective provides a guide to the beliefs and practices of Mennonite Church USA. This confession was adopted in 1995 at a joint session of the Mennonite Church and General Conference Mennonite Church in Wichita, Kansas. It contains 24 articles ranging from the more general Christian theologies of God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit to the more distinct Foot Washing; Truth and the Avoidance of Oaths, Peace, Justice, and Nonresistance; and The Church's Relation to Government and Society.