Oct. 20, 2008 issue
‘Adoption’ of ethnic churches boosts MB membership
By Paul Schrag Mennonite Weekly ReviewWhile Mennonite Church USA tries to reverse a membership decline, the second-largest U.S. Mennonite group has a much different story to tell.
Gary Mejia, pastor of Eagles Harbor Community Church, a Mennonite Brethren church plant in Clovis, Calif., baptizes a new member. — Photo provided by Christian Leader
The U.S. Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches has more than doubled its membership in 25 years.
The conference has grown from 16,942 members in 1983 to 35,496 in 2008.
The Canadian MB conference also is expanding, though not as fast. Membership there has increased 10 percent, to 36,946, since 2000.
By contrast, MC USA lost 9 percent of its membership between 2001 and 2007, falling to 109,315.
How did Mennonite Brethren in the United States manage to grow so much? Not primarily through church planting, though they’ve had some success at that.
The biggest factor, conference leaders say, was the “adoption” of ethnic congregations — especially Slavic churches of Ukrainian immigrants.
“They found in us a theology they could say yes to,” said Don Morris, director of Mission USA, the conference’s church-planting and renewal arm. “They are very much peacemaking people. They are very evangelical.”
From the mid-1990s to the early 2000s, 35 Slavic congregations — many of them in the Pacific Northwest, most with Pentecostal and Baptist backgrounds in Ukraine — became MB.
“These churches were aware of the Mennonite Brethren family, and some early linkages had a snowball effect,” said Ed Boschman, executive director of the U.S. MB conference.
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