Aurora Mennonite Church (Aurora, Ohio, USA)
In 1904, Joseph and Alex Stutzman, Amish Mennonites from Nebraska, settled near Aurora in Portage County, Ohio. The Alex Miller family from Sugarcreek, Ohio, joined them the following year. Other Amish Mennonite families searching for cheaper farmland soon joined them from Kansas, Iowa, Colorado, Missouri, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
The community began a Sunday school in 1906 and was occasionally visited by ministers from nearby counties. It used a vacant schoolhouse rented at the corner of Bartlett and Elliman Roads. The following year, it moved to another schoolhouse on the northwest corner of Route 43 and West Mennonite Road, across the road from the current church building. It then purchased the first schoolhouse and moved it to the congregation's present location.
Elias B. Stoltzfus, from West Liberty, Ohio, felt called to mission service. He was ordained in 1908 to pastor a church in Maryland. Instead, he came to Portage County to lead the small Amish Mennonite congregation there.
By 1912, the former schoolhouse was too small. The congregation built a new meetinghouse was dedicated on 17 November 1912. The former building was eventually sold and moved to the home of A. J. Stutzman. After the new meetinghouse was completed, the congregation became known as the Plainview Mennonite Church because of the "plain view" it offered of the nearby countryside. In 1972, the congregation formally changed its name to Aurora Mennonite Church.
Buggy sheds were removed in 1925, and an addition with a balcony and inside restrooms was built to the south of the original building in 1948. In 1964, the church added a kitchen in the basement, and in 1970 it added a fellowship hall and Sunday school rooms. Later it remodelled the sanctuary and basement.
Initially, Plainview Amish Mennonite Church was part of the Eastern Amish Mennonite Conference. That body merged with the Ohio Mennonite Conference in 1927 to become the Ohio and Eastern Mennonite Conference and eventually, the Ohio Mennonite Conference when the "Eastern" congregations formed their own conference.
The Plainview Mennonite Church helped to establish the Britton Run Amish Mennonite Church in Crawford County, Pennsylvania and in the Gladstone Mennonite Mission in Cleveland.
In 2016, Aurora Mennonite left the Ohio Conference and joined the Lancaster Mennonite Conference. This move was part of a larger realignment of Mennonite congregations formerly part of Mennonite Church USA. These congregations were unhappy with Mennonite Church USA's failure to take stronger disciplinary actions against area conferences and congregations that expressed openness to the inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons. The Lancaster Mennonite Conference had taken action in 2015 to withdraw from Mennonite Church USA by the end of 2017 and became an attractive alternative for these congregations.
Bibliography
Kudley, John. "A history of the Aurora Mennonite Church." Akron Beacon Journal 1 November 2020. Web. 20 September 2024. https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/opinion/2020/11/01/history-aurora-mennonite-church/6113344002/.
Lahmers, Ken. "Kaleidoscope: Local Mennonite church history spans 107 years." Akron Beacon Journal 22 February 2012. Web. 23 September 2024. https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/local/aurora-advocate/2012/02/22/kaleidoscope-local-mennonite-church-history/19806132007/.
Miller, Vern L. "The History of the Plainview Mennonite Church . . ." (1950, unpublished paper in Mennonite Historical Library, Goshen, Indiana).
Stoltzfus, Grant M. Mennonites of the Ohio and Eastern Conference; From the Colonial Period in Pennsylvania to 1968. Studies in Anabaptist and Mennonite history, no. 13. Scottdale, Pa: Herald Press, 1969: 166-168, 330.
Stoltzfus, Regina Hands. "Mennonites, mission and race: the Cleveland experiment." Anabaptist Historians. 15 November 2016. Web. 23 September 2024. https://anabaptisthistorians.org/2016/11/15/mennonites-mission-and-race-the-cleveland-experiment/.
Additional Information
Address: 59 East Mennonite Road, Aurora, Ohio 44202
Telephone: 330-562-8011
Website: Aurora Mennonite Church
Denominational Affiliations: Eastern Amish Mennonite Conference (1909-1927)
Ohio Mennonite Conference (1927-2018)
LMC: a Fellowship of Anabaptist Churches (2018- )
Mennonite Church USA (Until 2018)
Pastoral Leaders at Aurora Mennonite Church
| Name | Years of Service |
|---|---|
| Elias "Eli" B. Stoltzfus (1860-1942) (Bishop) |
1909-1916 1916-1942 |
| Daniel B. Raber (1858-1939) | 1911-1939 |
| Abram W. Hershberger (1875-1942) | 1912-1922 |
| Mark Miller | 1923-1926 |
| Earl Miller (1900-1987) | 1931 |
| Herbert N. Troyer (1889-1954) | 1929-1942 |
| Elmer B. Stoltzfus (1896-1992) (Bishop) |
1940-1942 1942-1970 |
| Eugene J. Yoder (1896-1978) | 1940-1978 |
| David F. Miller (1932- ) | 1959-1976 |
| J. Frederick "Fred" Erb (1922-1985)(Interim) | 1977 |
| Lawrence B. Brunk (1917-2003) | 1978-1987 |
| Robert L. Troyer | 1988-1990 |
| Marlin K. Birkey | 1990-1999 |
| Glenn Steiner (Interim) | 2000-2001 |
| Jesse R. Engle | 2002-2009 |
| Naomi R. Engle (1965-2017) | 2002-2009 |
| Timothy Schultz | 2009-2013 |
| James Sutton | 2013-2017 |
| David Martino | 2017-2024 |
Aurora Mennonite Church Membership
| Year | Members |
|---|---|
| 1909 | 38 |
| 1920 | 135 |
| 1930 | 171 |
| 1940 | 186 |
| 1950 | 197 |
| 1960 | 142 |
| 1970 | 118 |
| 1980 | 138 |
| 1990 | 109 |
| 2000 | 206 |
| 2009 | 73 |
Original Mennonite Encyclopedia Article
By John S. Umble. Copied by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, p. 184. All rights reserved.
Plainview Mennonite Church (Mennonite Church), near Aurora, Ohio, a member of the Ohio Mennonite Conference, was founded by Amish Mennonites from Nebraska. Several Stutzman families arrived in 1906 but their first minister was Eli B. Stoltzfus of West Liberty, Ohio, who had been ordained for Long Green, Maryland, in 1908, but moved to Portage County in 1909, and was ordained bishop in 1916. He served from 1909 until his death in 1942.
The congregation enjoyed economic and religious growth. Membership increased from 35 in 1908 to 100 in 1912. In that year the congregation built the present meetinghouse. Members of the congregation helped to found the Britton Run Amish Mennonite Church in Crawford County, Pennsylvania, and still assiste actively in the Burton Mennonite Church in Geauga County and in the Gladstone Mennonite Mission in Cleveland. The membership of Plainview in 1957 was 136. At the time, development of the congregation was being hindered by inflationary land values and the encroachment of wealthy buyers of land for rural estates. The resident bishop in 1957 was Elmer B. Stoltzfus (1896-1992) and the minister Eugene Yoder (1896-1978).
| Author(s) | Richard D. Thiessen |
|---|---|
| Samuel J. Steiner | |
| Date Published | September 2024 |
Cite This Article
MLA style
Thiessen, Richard D. and Samuel J. Steiner. "Aurora Mennonite Church (Aurora, Ohio, USA)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. September 2024. Web. 27 Sep 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Aurora_Mennonite_Church_(Aurora,_Ohio,_USA)&oldid=179735.
APA style
Thiessen, Richard D. and Samuel J. Steiner. (September 2024). Aurora Mennonite Church (Aurora, Ohio, USA). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 27 September 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Aurora_Mennonite_Church_(Aurora,_Ohio,_USA)&oldid=179735.
©1996-2024 by the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. All rights reserved.