Mennonite Diversity

While visiting my grandfather’s hometown in Versailles Missouri, I found a kind of diversity I’ve never thought much about.

The city has a large number of Mennonite churches. The first Mennonite church, Bethel Mennonite, is the church my grandfather grew up in. My cousins explained that this church is now the most progressive church. People drive cars to church and wear contemporary clothing.

While driving up to the Bethel Church on Sunday, Adolfo and I passed another Mennonite church. It was not clear that this was a church because it had no cross on top and was a very plain looking building. But the building wasn’t what caught our attention. Adolfo and I were blown away by the parking lot. It was jam packed with horses and buggies. On the sides were bicycles. A woman came out of the church to calm a baby. The woman was dressed in a black dress and white bonnet. She looked just like an Amish woman. Later my cousins explained that this church was one of the newer churches.

While on tour with my cousins, we passed two other Mennonite churches. One was a breakoff from the Bethel Church. It was called the Mt. Zion Church, but my cousins called it the Wenger church since most of the members had the last name Wenger. The two churches split over the issue of joining different districts of the denomination. Now, the Wenger Church is no longer in existence, and most of its members have gone back to the Bethel Church.

The other church we passed was a middle-of-the-road church. These folks dressed in simpler clothing—-women in bonnets--but drove cars. My cousin explained that these folks were a bit strange. I wonder what was so strange about them.

Coming from racially diverse communities, Mennonite diversity seems a bit odd. My cousins also mentioned that the Amish had moved into the area a while back, but that they moved out when the Pennsylvania Dutch Mennonite moved in. I guess there was too much competition for being simple.