First Mennonite Church (Bluffton, Ohio, USA)
First Mennonite Church in Bluffton, Ohio, USA was part of the larger Swiss Mennonite congregation in and around Bluffton. On 21 April 1895 members living in Bluffton first held a Sunday school in the Lutheran Church on Sunday afternoon. Soon regular worship services commenced there on Sunday evenings.
In 1902 services moved from the Lutheran church to the second floor of the Moses Steiner block. Soon Mennonite residents in Bluffton requested a building in town to match the Ebenezer and St. John buildings located outside of town. On 1 April 1906 the Swiss Mennonite congregation dedicated the church building in Bluffton modeled on the Methodist church building in Forest, Ohio. The completed building cost $18,000 and held 1200 persons. The congregation completed additions to the building in 1957-58 and 1992-93.
First Mennonite remained part of the larger Swiss Mennonite congregation until 1 April 1918 when a vote approved the formation of First Mennonite as a separate congregation with its own independent organization and its own pastor. It also began to provide a parsonage for its pastor, initially in a home donated to the church by Peter S. and Catherine Thut.
In 2022 the congregation was part of the Central District Conference of Mennonite Church USA.
Bibliography
Raid, Howard. First Mennonite Church, Bluffton, Ohio: the Home of 90 Years of Worship and Service. Bluffton, Ohio: The Church, 1996.
Rich, Elaine Sommers, ed. Walking Together in Faith: The Central District Conference, 1957-1990. Bluffton, Ohio: The Conference, 2003.
Additional Information
Address: 101 South Jackson Street, Bluffton, Ohio 45817
Phone: 419-358-5766
Website: http://fmcbluffton.org/
Denominational Affiliations: Central District Conference Conference
Pastoral Leaders at First Mennonite Church and its predecessors
| Name | Years of Service |
|---|---|
| John Moser (1826-1908) | 1853-1908 |
| Christian Zimmerly (1841-1916) | 1876-1900 |
| Benjamin Diller (1845-1919) | 1881-1919 |
| Friedrich Zeller (1820-1903) | 1891-1903 |
| John B. Baer (1854-1939) | 1894-1909 |
| Christian Hege (1878-1971) | 1904-1909 |
| William S. Gottshall (1865-1941) | 1909-1924 |
| Elmer Basinger (1882-1958)(Assistant) | 1912-1918 |
| Anthony S. Shelly (1853-1928) | 1918-1920 |
| Samuel M. Musselman (1875-1938) | 1920-1931 |
| Amos E. Kreider (1889-1976) | 1931-1935 |
| Henry T. Unruh (1885-1976) | 1936-1942 |
| Jesse N. Smucker (1893-1983) | 1942-1950 |
| Alvin J. Beachy (1913-1986) | 1950-1956 |
| Jacob T. Friesen (1919-2020) | 1956-1967 |
| E. Stanley Bohn | 1968-1975 |
| Ellis Graber (1916-1989) | 1976-1983 |
| Melvin Schmidt | 1984-1993 |
| Dorothy Nickel Friesen | 1995-2003 |
| Douglas R. Luginbill (Associate) | 1995?-2002 |
| John L. Schrock (Associate) | 2000-2005 |
| Steven J. Yoder (1955-2016) | 2003?-2016 |
| Louise R. Wideman (Co-Pastor) | 2002-2014 |
| Gloria Hernandez Bucher (Interim) | 2014-2015 |
| Lavon Welty (Interim) | 2014-2015 |
| George O’Reilly (Associate) | 2016-? |
| Wanda S. Stopher | 2015-2021 |
| Jeff N. Boehr (Interim) | 2020-present |
| Theda Good | 2018-2020 |
| Phil Yoder | 2022-present |
| Carrie Mast (Interim) | 2022-present |
Membership at First Mennonite Church
| Year | Membership |
|---|---|
| 1930 | 443 |
| 1940 | 464 |
| 1950 | 512 |
| 1960 | 478 |
| 1970 | 647 |
| 1980 | 661 |
| 1990 | 558 |
| 2000 | 523 |
| 2007 | 561 |
| 2020 | 300 |
Original Mennonite Encyclopedia Article
By C. Henry Smith. Copied by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 1, p. 371. All rights reserved.
The First Mennonite Church (Mennonite Church USA), Bluffton, Ohio, is one of the four congregations comprising the Swiss Mennonite community about Bluffton, was member of the Middle District Conference (now Central District Conference). By 1900 a number of families of the settlement had moved into the village to enter different lines of business. They soon organized a special Sunday school for the town members, and later held occasional preaching services, first in the afternoons in the Lutheran church, and later in a rented up-town business building. By 1906 the congregation had grown large enough to justify a special building, and a building was erected. It remained a part of the large Swiss congregation, however, and was served by the same ministers. By 1918 it asked for a separate organization, and a separate full-time minister was secured. Elmer Basinger was the first to serve in this capacity, to be succeeded in the years to follow by S. M. Musselman, A. S. Shelly, A. E. Kreider, H. T. Unruh, J. N. Smucker, and Alvin Beachy, the pastor in 1952. The 1952 membership was 527.
| Author(s) | Samuel J Steiner |
|---|---|
| Date Published | September 2022 |
Cite This Article
MLA style
Steiner, Samuel J. "First Mennonite Church (Bluffton, Ohio, USA)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. September 2022. Web. 19 Apr 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=First_Mennonite_Church_(Bluffton,_Ohio,_USA)&oldid=174171.
APA style
Steiner, Samuel J. (September 2022). First Mennonite Church (Bluffton, Ohio, USA). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 19 April 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=First_Mennonite_Church_(Bluffton,_Ohio,_USA)&oldid=174171.
©1996-2024 by the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. All rights reserved.