Conservative Mennonite conferences

Heritage

The conservative Mennonite movement is not one body but a family of conferences and fellowships, formed mostly in the twentieth century as congregations withdrew from assimilating Mennonite conferences to preserve nonconformity, or grew from Amish Mennonite roots — the Conservative Mennonite Conference (1910) among the earliest, the Eastern Pennsylvania Mennonite Church (1968) among the larger later withdrawals. They occupy the ground between Old Order groups and mainstream Mennonites: modern technology accepted selectively, plain dress and church standards retained.

Theological family

Anabaptist: believers' baptism, nonresistance, nonconformity to the world, the devotional head covering for women, and congregational discipline, held with an evangelical emphasis on the new birth and personal Bible reading.

Who decides what

Congregational, gathered into conferences of varying strictness; each conference sets standards of practice for its congregations, and the conferences relate to one another informally — there is no umbrella body and no shared headquarters.

What a first-time visitor would find

A visitor finds a plain meetinghouse, rich a cappella four-part singing, expository preaching, and families in modest dress — cape dresses and coverings for women in the plainer conferences, simpler modern dress in others. Visitors are welcomed, and most of these churches evangelize through missions, publishing, and personal witness.

What it has always cared about

The disciplined congregation; Christian day schools and home education; global missions run quietly and at low cost; and print — gospel tracts, hymnals, and school curricula produced by houses such as Rod and Staff and Christian Light.

Its gift to the wider church

Curricula and hymnody far beyond their own pews: conservative Mennonite publishers supply Bible-centered school materials used by homeschooling families of many traditions across the continent, and their singing schools have kept unaccompanied four-part congregational song a living art.

Commonly confused with

With the Old Order Mennonites and Amish, who are plainer and do not use most modern technology; with the Beachy Amish Mennonites, close cousins from Amish rather than Mennonite descent; and with Mennonite Church USA, the more assimilated body many of these conferences left.

Range of views inside it

The range is the story: conferences differ substantially over dress standards, technology, and cooperation with other Christians, from nearly Old Order fellowships to conferences approaching the evangelical mainstream.

Where Conservative Mennonite conferences churches are on the map

1 Conservative Mennonite conferences congregations appear on The Church Map, across 1 states.

• Pennsylvania — 1