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I would guess Vienna is almost an old order Charity church. I believe they have a minister who was ordained Old Order at Mount Forest, Ontario. One of my nephews attended Vienna until they moved to the Maritime provinces, New Brunswick, I believe, to help a young church there. I would have considered my nephew, his wife and daughters to be plainer than many Old Order Mennonites.

I believe Hesston has gone the way of typical Charity groups - at one time I believe they had a three way split.

ABC 123 wrote:Was. As in past tense for most of them.

And sadly, not just Ohio. Take a look at this church directory from April, 2004.

http://web.archive.org/web/200404070358 ... wstate.cfm

12 years. It's really not that long ago. Less than 1 generation.

How many of these fellowships are still viable today? What became of the families who were in those fellowships? And of the ones that still are around, are they holding fast to conservative Anabaptist principles?

QP

quietpilgrim wrote: What became of the families who were in those fellowships?
QP

Let's just say the Godly Home Series sounded like a good idea when it first came around. Who wouldn't want the idyllic family and someone to tell you how to do it?

I don't think anyone foresaw where so many of the families---the youth in particular---would end up by 2017 (and even much sooner!).

Good, bad, or otherwise the original vision is no longer desirable to many.

quietpilgrim wrote:

ABC 123 wrote:Was. As in past tense for most of them.

And sadly, not just Ohio. Take a look at this church directory from April, 2004.

http://web.archive.org/web/200404070358 ... wstate.cfm

12 years. It's really not that long ago. Less than 1 generation.

How many of these fellowships are still viable today? What became of the families who were in those fellowships? And of the ones that still are around, are they holding fast to conservative Anabaptist principles?

QP

Wow.

quietpilgrim wrote:Take a look at this church directory from April, 2004.

Take a look at this list from 2012. A similar total number of churches, but only about a third are on both lists. That's a lot of turnover in 8 years!

Berea in Salem (Columbiana County) had a group that separated and formed Grace Christian Fellowship, Lisbon, Ohio. I visit folks from the latter group every month or so—they occasionally have a 7am men's prayer meeting I go to sometimes.

Recently (as in the last several months) yet another group has separated from Berea. I don't know their name or details about where they are meeting.

ohio jones wrote:

quietpilgrim wrote:Take a look at this church directory from April, 2004.

Take a look at this list from 2012. A similar total number of churches, but only about a third are on both lists. That's a lot of turnover in 8 years!

To be fair, I spotted three of the churches on the original Charity list which I shared that are still meeting together, but are no longer affiliated with Charity. These would be Saint Thomas Fellowship in PA (now unaffiliated Mennonite), and Victory Christian Fellowship in Goshen, IN (a "Brad Bahler" type church, for lack of a better descriptive), and the church in Manistee, MI. Perhaps there are others.

The directory that Charity Christian Fellowship now publishes divides churches into "affiliated" churches and "loosely associated" churches. The loosely associated ones would not be in the listing of churches on the GAMEO entry.

QP

An aside to Quiet Pilgrim: Interesting quote from the Didache in your signature.

quietpilgrim wrote:

ohio jones wrote:

quietpilgrim wrote:Take a look at this church directory from April, 2004.

Take a look at this list from 2012. A similar total number of churches, but only about a third are on both lists. That's a lot of turnover in 8 years!

To be fair, I spotted three of the churches on the original Charity list which I shared that are still meeting together, but are no longer affiliated with Charity. These would be Saint Thomas Fellowship in PA (now unaffiliated Mennonite), and Victory Christian Fellowship in Goshen, IN (a "Brad Bahler" type church, for lack of a better descriptive), and the church in Manistee, MI. Perhaps there are others.

The directory that Charity Christian Fellowship now publishes divides churches into "affiliated" churches and "loosely associated" churches. The loosely associated ones would not be in the listing of churches on the GAMEO entry.

QP

Charity's listing of affiliated churches (probably for purposes of finding fellowship) were always pretty arbitrary. For example one of the churches you mention, St. Thomas Christian Fellowship, probably never asked to be on such a list, and always was unaffiliated Mennonite. They were a plant from Shippensburg Christian Fellowship, which wasn't really a Charity-affiliated church, although men from Shippensburg spoke at Charity events such as their Bible schools.