Pilgrim Mennonite Conference current events

[mike]

I heard the other day that Pilgrim Mennonite Conference may soon be disintegrating into several different groups and that their next annual conference will be their last one. Does anyone know whether this is in fact the case?

[Ernie]

I think that is correct.
I heard that they decided they didn't want to do the normal thing of a Mennonite conference becoming a humongous, unwieldy organization, that places its own dealerships in every Anabaptist community. I understood they are going to divide regionally.
Hats off to them!

[mike]

I think that is correct.
I heard that they decided they didn't want to do the normal thing of a Mennonite conference becoming a humongous, unwieldy organization, that places its own dealerships in every Anabaptist community. I understood they are going to divide regionally.
Hats off to them!

That is good news. So are there other fault lines besides simply geographic areas and the desire to downsize, or is this a completely amicable situation?

[Biblical Anabaptist]

I heard the other day that Pilgrim Mennonite Conference may soon be disintegrating into several different groups and that their next annual conference will be their last one. Does anyone know whether this is in fact the case?

It was decided at some point that the conference would be divided when they had 10 bishops. The 2024 Pilgrim Directory lists 14. There has been discussion for several years on forming a Southern Conference ( not sure if that will be the name) which as I understand would include Piedmont, Darbun, Pensacola, Dublin, Smithdale (MS) and the congregation in NM. I had not heard that they had set a date. As far as I know, it is completely amicable

[joshuabgood]

I think that is correct.
I heard that they decided they didn't want to do the normal thing of a Mennonite conference becoming a humongous, unwieldy organization, that places its own dealerships in every Anabaptist community. I understood they are going to divide regionally.
Hats off to them!

Intersting...and unusual.

[barnhart]

This sounds like a healthy move.

[Josh]

My guess is it will become an informal fellowship of conferences who may end up sharing various agencies (mutual aid, missions, etc.)

Given the “issues” with a strict hierarchical conference model, this seems like a very good idea.

[mike]

I'm impressed. I think it is a good thing in a number of different ways, and I'd like to see similar efforts in other networks of churches.

[Ernie]

I'm impressed. I think it is a good thing in a number of different ways, and I'd like to see similar efforts in other networks of churches.

The Mennonite Church did this for a long time. John Oberholtzer in 1860, was the first Mennonite to introduce the dealership thing all over North America (General Conference Mennonite Church), stealing sheep from other conferences and setting up rival congregations in their backyard.
Daniel Kauffman and company were the first ones to attempt bringing all the Mennonite regional conferences under one federal government. (Something the Washington/Franklin conference would not consent to.)
Eastern and Nationwide then followed Oberholtzer's footsteps, in setting up dealerships all over North America in other Mennonite church's back yards. Recently more conferences have started doing this, everything from Lancaster Conference to BMA to Mid-Atlantic to Pilgrim to Northeast.

The South Atlantic separation from South Eastern was one of the few amicable regional separations.

[Ken]

I'm curious what people see as the pros and cons of a larger versus smaller conference.

Also it seems to me that the more relevant metric is total number of members in the conference, rather than total number of churches.