Mennonite Weekly Review

YODER, Kan. — Beams from headlights lit the dark night as a string of vehicles entered the parking lot of the former Yoder Mennonite Church.

The former Yoder Mennonite Church has become Journey @ Yoder, a second campus for South Hutchinson Mennonite Church.

Worshipers who were headed to Journey @ Yoder caused the small traffic jam.

After several years of sitting empty, activity was returning to the church at the corner of East Longview and Yoder Road. Worshipers were gathering for the first service at what has become the new campus of South Hutchinson Mennonite Church.

Life was coming full circle in the community, where the tall white clapboard building has been a landmark for decades. In 2006 it closed its doors due to declining membership and other issues. In the aftermath, the Yoder congregation offered the building to South Hutchinson Mennonite, which originally had its roots in that very church.

According to the SHMC history, back in 1931, during the Great Depression, the Yoder and West Liberty Mennonite churches began distributing food and clothing to destitute people in southeast Hutchinson. In 1937, Hutchinson Mission Mennonite was organized at Avenue C and Pershing. In 1972 the church moved to its current site in South Hutchinson.

At South Hutchinson Mennonite, the gift of the Yoder church building came as a surprise, said Howard Wagler, lead pastor.

“But then we gathered the leadership team and leaders from the Yoder congregation to begin talking,” Wagler said. Together they helped Yoder to process through the change and began conversations on how it would all transpire.

Wagler described it as a sad moment in history for the Yoder worshipers. However, at the same time they saw it as a tremendous opportunity, with many possibilities.

On Nov. 9, a crowd of 162 people gathered in the fellowship hall, the brick addition to the original structure. Some carried plates of cookies. They came in casual attire, most wearing jeans and sweaters.

Men began scrambling to set up extra chairs as the crowd kept coming through the door.