Church of God in Christ, Mennonite (Holdeman)

Heritage

John Holdeman, a Mennonite from Wayne County, Ohio, became convinced that the church of his day had grown lax in discipline and cold in conversion, and in 1859 began holding separate meetings; the body that gathered around him took the name Church of God in Christ, Mennonite. It grew chiefly among Mennonite communities of the Midwest and prairie states, with its center of gravity in Kansas. RCMS 2020 counted 170 congregations. Unlike most conservative Anabaptist groups, the Holdeman people actively evangelize, supporting missions and publishing through Gospel Publishers.

Theological family

Conservative Anabaptist with a strong doctrine of the one true visible church: the new birth, believers' baptism, nonresistance, nonconformity in dress and life (beards for men, dark head coverings for women), and church discipline including avoidance of the excommunicated, practiced as a means of restoration.

Who decides what

Congregational in structure with strong collective discipline: local ministers and deacons, chosen from within, guide congregations, and an all-church conference settles questions of doctrine and practice for the whole brotherhood.

What a first-time visitor would find

A visitor finds a plain meetinghouse, a cappella singing, unadorned expository preaching, and a congregation in modest, distinctive dress. Visitors are received courteously, and these churches — unlike some plain neighbors — do seek converts.

What it has always cared about

Genuine conversion testified and lived; the purity of the church guarded by discipline; separation from worldly entertainment and fashion; Christian day schools; and mutual aid.

Its gift to the wider church

A seriousness about church membership that most of American Christianity has surrendered: the Holdeman conviction that belonging to the church commits one's whole life stands as a quiet rebuke to churches where membership means a name on a roll.

Commonly confused with

Most damagingly, with the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), the great African American Pentecostal denomination — the same three words, an entirely different family; also with the Amish and Old Order Mennonites, whose plainness is similar but whose practice around evangelism and technology differs.

Range of views inside it

Practice is notably uniform by design — uniformity of dress and discipline across congregations is part of the body's understanding of the one church — though mission congregations abroad and at home vary in culture.

Where Church of God in Christ, Mennonite (Holdeman) churches are on the map

2 Church of God in Christ, Mennonite (Holdeman) congregations appear on The Church Map, across 1 states.

• Kansas — 2