Niverville Mennonite Church (Niverville, Manitoba, Canada)
When many Mennonites immigrated to Mexico from the Niverville, Manitoba area in the 1920s, they created the opportunity for recent Russian Mennonite immigrants to settle. These families began to meet for worship in 1926 and affiliated themselves with the Schoenwieser Gemeinde. The desire to become independent grew and so in 1944 the Niverville Mennonite Church emerged. They purchased their own meeting house in 1944. The membership in 1958 was 148. In 1958 they built a new larger meeting house which was expanded in 1967 and again in 1976. Dietrich Koop, David Hauseknecht, and Jacob Klassen are considered the founding leaders of the group. The congregation met together with the Mennonite Brethren in the early years.
During the 1960s a group left the congregation to form Elim Mennonite Church. Eventually the Elim congregation joined the Evangelical Mennonite Mission Conference. After a number of years of working together, Elim Mennonite and Niverville Mennonite merged to form Niverville Community Fellowship on 1 January 2009.
In 1950 there were 90 members; in 1955, 139; in 1965, 173; in 1975, 109; in 1985, 188; in 1995, 160; in 2000, 148; in 2006, 160. The congregation has been affiliated with Mennonite Church Manitoba, Mennonite Church Canada (1946-) and General Conference Mennonite Church (1953-2001). The language of worship is English; the transition from German occurred in the 1970s.
The pastoral leaders of the congregation have included Johann Braun (1928-1952), Jacob J. Klassen (1933-1962), Dietrich Koop (1928-1930), Peter Dirks (1937-1939), John Krahn (1958-1965), Albert Loeppky (1964-1972), Peter Janzen (1969-1970), John Siemens (1971-1981), Del Epp (1982-1986, 1997), Clarence Epp (1987-1991), Erwin Wiebe (1992), John Lenshyn (1993-1996), Paul Adams (1998-2006).
Bibliography
Canadian Mennonite (12 September 1958): 8.
CMC Nexus (December 1995): 7.
Krahn, Erica. "Niverville Mennonite Church." Research paper, Canadian Mennonite Bible College, 1978, 18 pp. Mennonite Heritage Centre.
Loeppky, Otto. "Niverville Mennonite Church." Research paper, Canadian Mennonite Bible College, 1965, 17 pp. Mennonite Heritage Centre.
Mennonite Reporter (15 September 1986): 14.
Niverville Community Church. "Church Story." Web. 1 July 2010. http://www.nivcf.ca/about.htm.
Archival Records
Church records at Mennonite Heritage Centre.
Additional Information
Address: Box 117, 112 3rd Ave. South, Niverville MB R0A 1E0
Telephone: 204-388-4645
Author(s) | Cornelius, Marlene Epp Krahn |
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Richard D. Thiessen | |
Date Published | July 2010 |
Cite This Article
MLA style
Krahn, Cornelius, Marlene Epp and Richard D. Thiessen. "Niverville Mennonite Church (Niverville, Manitoba, Canada)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. July 2010. Web. 27 Nov 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Niverville_Mennonite_Church_(Niverville,_Manitoba,_Canada)&oldid=93110.
APA style
Krahn, Cornelius, Marlene Epp and Richard D. Thiessen. (July 2010). Niverville Mennonite Church (Niverville, Manitoba, Canada). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 27 November 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Niverville_Mennonite_Church_(Niverville,_Manitoba,_Canada)&oldid=93110.
Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 3, p. 889. All rights reserved.
©1996-2024 by the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. All rights reserved.