Committee on Church Unity (General Conference Mennonite Church)
The Committee on Church Unity functioned under the Board of Missions of the General Conference Mennonite Church. Its purpose was to promote "unity among member churches of the Conference and among branches of Mennonites around the world." Among the other duties of this committee was the examination and recommendation of applications from congregations and conferences for admission into conference membership.
The committee was created at the 1929 session of the General Conference under the name of Comity Committee. At the conference session in 1935 the name was changed to Church Unity Committee. The committee contacted congregations, mostly those affiliated with district conferences but not with the General Conference, and invited them to join. It was also the responsibility of the committee to remove difficulties that arose in matters pertaining to practices and doctrines.
One of the major tasks of the committee was to work out the plan by which the General Conference Mennonite Church and the Central Conference of Mennonites united in one body. This union, as well as the joining of numerous congregations in the United States, Canada, and some in South America, was due to a large degree to the efforts of the Committee on Church Unity, which was the name adopted in the new conference constitution of 1950. Leading members of the committee were M. Horsch, Benjamin Ewert, W. F. Unruh, and Arnold Funk.
Restructuring of the General Conference in the 1960s led to the cessation of this committee's work.
Bibliography
See reports of the committee after 1929 in Minutes and Reports of the General Conference Mennonite Church.
| Author(s) | Cornelius Krahn |
|---|---|
| Date Published | 1953 |
Cite This Article
MLA style
Krahn, Cornelius. "Committee on Church Unity (General Conference Mennonite Church)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1953. Web. 16 Apr 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Committee_on_Church_Unity_(General_Conference_Mennonite_Church)&oldid=94222.
APA style
Krahn, Cornelius. (1953). Committee on Church Unity (General Conference Mennonite Church). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 16 April 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Committee_on_Church_Unity_(General_Conference_Mennonite_Church)&oldid=94222.
Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 1, p. 650. All rights reserved.
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