Pleasant Oaks Mennonite Church (Middlebury, Indiana, USA)
The Warren Street Mennonite Church, Middlebury, Indiana, USA, began during a time of turmoil in the Indiana-Michigan Mennonite Conference when some members and leaders resisted increasingly strict regulation of personal dress and tried to slow greater assimilation into the surrounding culture.
In March 1923, the issues climaxed at the Middlebury Mennonite Church when 12 young female members were denied communion for not adhering to the dress code of the Indiana-Michigan Conference. Their sin was wearing a hat instead of a prescribed bonnet. Bishop D. D. Miller did not deny communion to any men. The conference "silenced" (withdrew ministerial recognition) from one of Middlebury's pastors, Simon S. Yoder, in September 1923. Yoder and about 80 former Middlebury members began meeting in a building on Warren Street.
The new group called itself the West Side Church but became the Warren Street Mennonite Church on 24 May 1924 when it dedicated the former local opera house. The church remained independent until it joined the Central Conference of Mennonites in 1926.
Beginning in the late 1950s, as membership declined, Warren Street considered two options--to build a new church or to merge with another congregation, possibly Silver Street Mennonite. Ultimately, it decided to build a new church on the edge of town, which it planned to occupy on Easter Sunday in 1965. It renamed itself the Pleasant Oaks Mennonite Church. It sold the Warren Street facility to a new Conservative Mennonite group that did not survive very long, and the property was soon sold to a neighboring hardware business.
The last Sunday in the Warren Street building was the day of the Palm Sunday tornadoes that took 271 lives in three states. Those deaths included Jean and Timothy Krehbiel, the wife and infant son of Warren Street's pastor, Myron Krehbiel. The actual first service in the new building was the double funeral for Jean and Timothy on Maundy Thursday.
The new building encouraged strong growth, and the congregation added an education wing that was dedicated in 1971.
Anne Neufeld Rupp's ordination in November 1976 was the first for a woman in the Central District Conference and the second in the General Conference Mennonite Church. This groundbreaking action did not come without some opposition. Thirty years later, issues over women in leadership figured in the decline of the congregation. The youth minister resigned rather than work with the new female pastor, creating great unrest among the youth.
In 2007 conversations began about reuniting with First Mennonite Church. These halted for a time after part of the church property was sold to a developer; this sustained the congregation financially for a short time. However, by early 2009 it was clear that Pleasant Oaks' financial situation was grim. Conversations resumed with First Mennonite. The last Sunday morning service at Pleasant Oaks was on 22 November 2009.
The thriving Pleasant Oaks Preschool continued at the Pleasant Oaks location after the merger.
Bibliography
Hartzler, Rachel Nafziger. No Strings Attached: Boundary Lines in Pleasant Places: a History of Warren Street / Pleasant Oaks Mennonite Church. Eugene, Oregon: Resource Publications, 2013.
"Pleasant Oaks and First Mennonite of Middlebury reunite after 86 years." Central District Conference Reporter 53, no. 6 (November 2009): 4.
Additional Information
Address: 13307 CR 16, Middlebury, Indiana 46540
Phone:
Website:
Denominational Affiliations: Central District Conference
Mennonite Church USA
Pastoral Leaders at Pleasant Oaks Mennonite Church
| Name | Years of Service |
|---|---|
| Simon S. Yoder (1879-1943) | 1923-1930 |
| Lee J. Lantz (1873-1970) | 1930-1934 |
| Emil A. "E. A." Sommer (1883-1957) | 1934-1942 |
| Robert W. Hartzler (1919-1994)(Interim) | 1943 |
| Ernest J. Bohn (1894-1992) | 1943-1945 |
| Alvin J. Regier (1916-2007) | 1945-1947 |
| Harold P. Thiessen (1922-1986) | 1948-1955 |
| Elmer A. Wall (1929- ) | 1955-1960 |
| Bernard "Bernie" Wiebe (Interim) | 1961 |
| Raymond M. Yoder (1914-1983) | 1961-1962 |
| Myron J. Krehbiel (1930-2011) | 1962-1965 |
| Floyd Quenzer (1939- ) | 1965-1975 |
| Ken Neufeld Rupp (1941-2010)(Co-Pastor) | 1975-1982 |
| Anne Neufeld Rupp (1932-2020)(Co-Pastor) | 1975-1982 |
| Clarence D. Sink (1917-1988)(Interim) | 1982-1984 |
| John Reeser | 1984-1985 |
| Virgil M. Gerig (1918-2006)(Interim) | 1986 |
| Barry Schmell | 1986-1998 |
| John C. King (Interim) | 1998-2000 |
| Robin K. LaRue | 2000-2004 |
| Michael Miller (Youth) | 2002-2006 |
| Eugene Bontrager (Interim) | 2004-2005 |
| Rachel Nafziger Hartzler | 2006-2009 |
| Matt Gingerich (Youth) | 2006 |
Membership at Pleasant Oaks Mennonite Church
| Year | Membership |
|---|---|
| 1926 | 81 |
| 1932 | 115 |
| 1942 | 99 |
| 1950 | 48 |
| 1960 | 64 |
| 1970 | 117 |
| 1980 | 112 |
| 1990 | 152 |
| 2000 | 158 |
| 2009 | 47 |
Original Mennonite Encyclopedia Article
By John C. Wenger. Copied by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, p. 891. All rights reserved.
Warren Street Mennonite Church (General Conference Mennonite), located in Middlebury, Indiana, a member of the Central Conference of Mennonites, had its origin in 1923, when Simon S. Yoder, a minister, withdrew from the Indiana-Michigan Mennonite Conference (Mennonite Church), taking about 100 members with him. The congregation remained independent of any conference affiliation until 1926, when it was received into the fellowship of the Central Conference of Mennonites. In 1957 the membership was 59, with Elmer A. Wall as minister. For a meetinghouse the congregation in 1923 bought from the town the former "opera house" and remodeled it.
| Author(s) | Samuel J Steiner |
|---|---|
| Date Published | February 2023 |
Cite This Article
MLA style
Steiner, Samuel J. "Pleasant Oaks Mennonite Church (Middlebury, Indiana, USA)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. February 2023. Web. 23 Nov 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Pleasant_Oaks_Mennonite_Church_(Middlebury,_Indiana,_USA)&oldid=174776.
APA style
Steiner, Samuel J. (February 2023). Pleasant Oaks Mennonite Church (Middlebury, Indiana, USA). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 23 November 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Pleasant_Oaks_Mennonite_Church_(Middlebury,_Indiana,_USA)&oldid=174776.
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