First Mennonite Church (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada)

First Mennonite Church in the early 1950s.
Canadian Mennonite photo

First Mennonite Church of Winnipeg can trace its beginning to itinerant ministry of Benjamin Ewert of the Bergthaler Mennonite Church who paid regular visits to Mennonites in Winnipeg starting around 1917. In August 1921, Ewert moved to Winnipeg, and arranged for monthly worship services to be to be held in the facilities rented from the Zion Reformed Church on Alexander Avenue at Ellen. By the mid-1920s, recent Mennonite immigrants from the Soviet Union, outnumbered the earlier Mennonites in Winnipeg. Mennonite girls were working as domestics in Winnipeg, prompted establishing a girls' home (Maedchenheim) in October 1926, sponsored by the Home Mission of the General Conference, who assigned minister Gerhard A. Peters and his wife as house-parents. Gerhard Peters gave instruction to baptismal candidates, but it was assumed that they would be baptized by a bishop from their rural home. With more and more Russian Mennonite immigrants in Winnipeg, the Conference of Mennonites in Canada asked Ältester Johann P. Klassen, who lived in Starbuck, to provide communion and baptism services in Winnipeg.

First Mennonite Church in Winnipeg was known as the Winnipeg Schoenwieser Mennonite church until 1951, a name chosen in honour of the Russian home village of Ältester Johann P. Klassen. Sometimes First Mennonite Church is considered the mother church of the Schoenwiese Mennonite Church group, because of its size and prominence within the group. Klassen moved to Winnipeg in 1929. Johann H. Enns from Ste. Elisabeth, Manitoba, moved to Winnipeg in 1932 to work full-time as Aeltester Klassen’s assistant, since the number of Schoenwieser Mennonite Church branches was increasing significantly.

The First Mennonite Church of Winnipeg first met in and later purchased the Zion Reformed Church building on Alexander Avenue. They built their own church building on Notre Dame at Alverston in 1950. This building was further expanded in 1958 and 1983.

The language of worship was originally German. English was first used by some Sunday School teachers during the 1950s. Both English and German began to be used in the 1960s as the language of worship.

Music in the form of congregational and choir singing was seriously cultivated from the beginning. Much of the skill and interest in music can be attributed to early members such as Mennonite hymnologist, J.P. Claszen, and violinist/conductor John Konrad, and later musicians such as conductors Ernest Enns, Henry Engbrecht, and Rudy Schellenberg. The congregation was involved with the establishing of Sunset House (1969), Arlington House (1974) and Autumn House (1979) for senior citizens. Sunset House is owned by the church. The congregation was also instrumental in founding the Concordia Hospital, the Mennonitische Religionschule von Winnipeg, the Bethania Personal Care Home, and Westgate Mennonite Collegiate.

Bibliography

Canadian Mennonite (20 May 1960): 20.

Ens, Anna. In Search of Unity: Story of the Conference of Mennonites in Manitoba. Winnipeg: CMBC Publications, 1996. 290 pp.

Jubilate: 60 Years First Mennonite Church 1926-1986. Winnipeg: First Mennonite Church, 1991. 182 pp.

Klassen, Isaac. Dem Herrn die Ehre: Schoenwieser Mennoniten Gemeinde von Manitoba, 1924-1968. Altona: D.W. Friesen, 1969, 150 pp.

Mennonite Reporter (15 November 1976): 14; (15 September 1986): 14; (4 April 1994): 8; (20 March 1995): 10.

Unpublished congregational history, 1979, 20 pp. Mennonite Heritage Centre.

Archival Records:

Microfilmed records at Mennonite Heritage Centre.

Additional Information

Address:22 Notre Dame Ave., Winnipeg, MB, R3E 0M9

Phone:204-772-2419

Website: First Mennonite Church (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada)

Denominational Affliation:

Schoenwieser Mennonite Church group (1926-

Conference of Mennonites in Manitoba / Mennonite Church Manitoba (1936-1945, 1968-

Conference of Mennonites in Canada / Mennonite Church Canada (1926-1945, 1949-

General Conference Mennonite Church (1926-2002)

Author(s)	Marlene Epp
	Alf Redekopp
Date Published	December 2015

Cite This Article

MLA style

Epp, Marlene and Alf Redekopp. "First Mennonite Church (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. December 2015. Web. 22 Nov 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=First_Mennonite_Church_(Winnipeg,_Manitoba,_Canada)&oldid=132881.

APA style

Epp, Marlene and Alf Redekopp. (December 2015). First Mennonite Church (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 22 November 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=First_Mennonite_Church_(Winnipeg,_Manitoba,_Canada)&oldid=132881.

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