What a congregation or denomination does about Jesus’ Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20) is a fair measure of its maturity in Christ. The organization does not need to be super-active in the mission of the Church–it may be beginning from zero–but that it increasingly lays aside every weight it knows of to support the assignment is important.

Before evangelist Eusebius Hershey of the Mennonite Brethren in Christ Pennsylvania Conference went to Liberia in 1890, the revivalist Mennonite denominations that merged to make up the MBiC in 1883 (note 1) had accepted that missionary work was a biblical requirement. The precursors were effectively starting from nothing. One group, the “New Mennonite Church of Canada West and Ohio,” had only about 250 adult members by 1870 in 15 locations, but responded by starting a fund-raising society. This was a worthy task. Everek Storms reported on a later society in Appendix 1, “Origin of the United Missionary Society,” in his book What God Hath Wrought (note 2). This blog reports on an earlier society which is not covered in his fine book.

The Mennonite Archives of Ontario keeps the founding minutes of the Mennoniten Missions Gesellschaft (note 3). Members of the NMC met in the farm house of New Mennonite preacher, Pennsylvania-born John McNally, on September 16 1859. John and his wife Mary Ann (Shoemaker) McNally raised a large family on their farm in North Dumfries Township, one mile south of the village of Blair, now on the west side of the city of Cambridge, Ontario (note 4). I went looking for it, but all that land is one big gravel pit now, and the farm buildings long gone.

The proceedings were held, or at least the minutes were recorded, in German. Another NMC preacher, Abraham Ziegler Detweiler (1830-1912) of Doon, ON, chaired the meeting. The group settled on a simple constitution of 8 articles. They appointed a President: A Z Detweiler; a Vice-president: Ephraim “Hunsper” [Hunsperger] (1814-1904) from Ohio; a Secretary: Samuel Bauman/Bowman (1802-1883), a miller from Blair; and a Schatzmeister (treasurer): Johann Z Detweiler (1817-1904), Abraham’s older brother (note 5). Other members, called directors, were Sam B “Slichter” [Schlichter] (1821-1873) from New Dundee, Wilmot Township, Waterloo (note 6); “Yohann McNelly” [McNally] (1822-1913), who was to be the Verwalter or steward; Daniel Hoch (1805-1878) from The Twenty in Clinton Township, Lincoln County, ON (note 7); Heinrich Neisz [or Neise] from Ohio; Samuel Shirk [or Sherk] (1822-1900) from Breslau, Waterloo; and Jacob Weber, probably from Blair as well (note 8). I think the geographical spread of the leaders shows the founders’ desire to publicize their fund-raising to a wide area.

The next reference to the society I’ve seen occurs in Pennsylvania Mennonite magazines, reporting some remittances in 1862 from the funds they had collected: $8.00 to Daniel Hoch for a forderung (assistance, requisition) to travel to Huron County, ON; $6.00 for Bibles for Huron County; and $25.00 to Daniel Hege. Hege was probably the agent of the General Conference Mennonite group raising funds for a Mennonite school in Wadsworth, Ohio. These expenditures suggest the society supported what became known as “home missions,” supporting new congregations, rather than “foreign missions” in other countries.

Abraham Detweiler, as President, wrote John Oberholtzer of the General Conference Mennonites in 1872 about some missionary concerns. Presumably the Mennonite Mission Society continued up to the NMC merger with the Reforming Mennonite Society in 1875. Abraham Detweiler and Hoch did not join in the merger, and Detweiler listed himself as a Methodist in the Canadian censuses of 1891 and 1911.

When the new Church (temporarily called the Evangelical United Mennonite Church) started a similar fund-raising society in 1881, as described in Storms’ Appendix 1, John McNally was again a member, this time as President (note 9). It is not clear how long this society continued in Ontario, though its money supported GCM missionaries to Arapahoe native Americans in the 1880s (note 10).

note 1: See EMCC History blog “Formation of the EMCC” on the top of the home page.

note 2: Everek Richard Storms, What God Hath Wrought: The Story of the Foreign Missionary Efforts of the United Missionary Church (Springfield, OH: United Missionary Society, 1948) p 149-154.

note 3: “New Mennonite” folder, in Mennonite Brethren in Christ fonds, Mennonite Archives of Ontario, Milton Good Library, Conrad Grebel University College, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, for all these references to the New Mennonites.

note 4: Clare Fuller, “McNally, John Kinzel 1822-1913,” GAMEO, https://gameo.org/index.php?title=McNally,_John_Kinzel_(1822-1913)&oldid=133321.

note 5: Johann Z Detweiler married Magdalena Schlichter, a sister of Samuel. A brother of Johann, Jacob Z Detweiler, married Hannah Schlichter, another sister of Samuel. Samuel Schlichter’s first wife was Catherine Detweiler, a sister of the Detweiler brothers. The New Mennonites were a closely knit group in southern Waterloo!

note 6: Clare Fuller, “Schlichter, Samuel 1821-1873,” GAMEO, https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Schlichter,_Samuel_(1821-1873)&oldid=135612.

note 7: Samuel J Steiner, “Hoch, Daniel 1805-1878,” GAMEO, https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Hoch,_Daniel_(1805-1878)&oldid=165022.

note 8: The New Mennonite Society listed a “Jakob Weaver” as a member in 1869; “Minutes of New Mennonite Society of Blair, Ontario 1869-1874,” Mennogesprach, Vol 5 No 2. The name is something like “John Smith” so identification is a bit uncertain. Samuel Sherk moved to Ohio in 1860, and then Kent County, Michigan, where the NMC ordained him in 1870.

note 9: Storms, p 150.

note 10: Edmund G Kaufman, Development of the Missionary and Philanthropic Interest among the Mennonites of North America (Berne, IN: Mennonite Book Concern, 1931), p 259. Kaufman has other references to A Z Detweiler, Ephraim Hunsperger, Daniel Hoch and others. Jasper Abraham Huffman, ed, History of the Mennonite Brethren in Christ Church (New Carlisle, OH: Bethel Publishing, 1920) p 186. The Pennsylvania Conference had a similar society; “Proceedings of the Pennsylvania Annual Conference,” Gospel Banner (February 28 1893) p 4.