Pilgrim Conference split

[Judas Maccabeus]

The end.

Which assumes a level of control that most of us simply would not try to assume, and which we really do not have. The fact that your leadership feels itself able to give such directives and expect them to be obeyed without dissent is emblematic of a high level of control. It's exsistence is almost certainly a result of the residual fear instilled by events in the recent history of the movement. In other words, a high control organization.

As I have said several times, the leadership does not give a “directive”.

The congregation makes a decision whether or not to proceed (and it has to be strong, over 60% technically, realistically needs to be over 80% and in practice is usually unanimous).

I don’t see what you have an objection to. A group of people agree they can’t all fit in the building anymore. They don’t want to waste money building huge buildings and having the problems that come with being too big. So they wait until they can all agree on how to become 2 congregations. Then they do what they agreed to do.

Leadership has almost nothing to do with it - including choosing who the ministers are who end up at the 2 new congregations. The members themselves end up deciding that, although they usually choose it based on geography or other factors.

It is not a high control thing.

But that is not what you previously said:

"JohnH wrote: ↑Thu Jun 11, 2026 11:42 am

"Split" is a term with dual meanings. In Holdeman circles, a "church split" means that the congregation got too big to function properly (> 200 members, basically, although a size closer to 120 is preferred), so they divide it in half, build another church building elsewhere, and people get randomly assigned to go to one or the other.

"Randomly assigned" means the choice is up to leadership, since it is the one who conducts the random assignment. "Randomly assigned" is not the same as "leadership has almost nothing to do with it." I am going to treat the former as the way it is. When I state that, it appears that this is a high-control group. I place this here for future readers to be warned as to what they are getting into.

[Soloist]

Can we split the Holdeman by leadership random decision away from the Pilgrim conference? It doesn't seem like we can operate by Pilgrim standards here.

[Ernie]

I called this a split because that is what it is. Sorry if my pointing out reality and ignoring the spin is inconvenient.

Pilgrim did not split evenly into three groups. There is no equivalence in the sense they are about the same size, equally geographic, equally well heeled, etc. sure, Pilgrim always had “a plan” but funny it was time to split AFTER losing members to new groups like Northeastern

No, I will stand behind the view that Pilgrim became too liberal for some in both practice and theology, especially over things like internet, dress, and IMHO a tad too much Protestant thinking going into the soup.

It will be interesting to see how Northeastern comes out when if has Eastern folks looking for less conservative and Pilgrim folks looking for more conservative. While they end up for now in a place of equality in practice, they got there from two directions.

I think you forgot this information I provided you with a year ago.

Also, this may have been planned, but if it were due to size, I would have thought to see it BEFORE the development of Northeastern group, not after. Did not Pilgrim get smaller due to the Northeastern development.

It just strikes me as odd that a split over size is done the first time the overall membership size takes a step BACK in size, but maybe they concluded size was a factor in the Northeastern thing (which I do not think is true).

In 2015, after the split, Pilgrim had 1473 members and Northeastern had 333. (roughly 1800 total)

By 2020, Pilgrim was back up to 1860 members.

In 2024, Pilgrim had 2320 members and Northeastern had 670+.
So in 9 years, Pilgrim grew by 60% and Northeastern by 100%.

Pilgrim lost 333 to Northeastern, but gained 847 in the years since then.

So, at the time of the 3-way intentional, denominational decentralization in 2025, Pilgrim had 500 more members than what it had at the time of the Northeastern exodus.

[JohnH]

"Randomly assigned" means the choice is up to leadership, since it is the one who conducts the random assignment. "Randomly assigned" is not the same as "leadership has almost nothing to do with it." I am going to treat the former as the way it is. When I state that, it appears that this is a high-control group. I place this here for future readers to be warned as to what they are getting into.

No, it doesn’t. The congregation forms committees who do things like find the new building site or buy an existing building, arrange the selection of who goes to which new congregation and so forth.

It is not a high control group in this regard and you would do well to stop making stuff up, or outright lying, about another Mennonite church group. I d not run around lying about yours and would appreciate it if you showed me the same respect.

[Judas Maccabeus]

"Randomly assigned" means the choice is up to leadership, since it is the one who conducts the random assignment. "Randomly assigned" is not the same as "leadership has almost nothing to do with it." I am going to treat the former as the way it is. When I state that, it appears that this is a high-control group. I place this here for future readers to be warned as to what they are getting into.

No, it doesn’t. The congregation forms committees who do things like find the new building site or buy an existing building, arrange the selection of who goes to which new congregation and so forth.

It is not a high control group in this regard and you would do well to stop making stuff up, or outright lying, about another Mennonite church group. I d not run around lying about yours and would appreciate it if you showed me the same respect.

I am just responding to things that you have said. They are a bit inconsistent.

[justme]

To me, the operative word is "assigned"
Assigned to me, means, i am told what to do. I am assigned job duties.

It might not be the preachers that assign who goes to congregation B or C. But someone (or maybe the wheel of names,) does. And that is control.

[R7ehr]

"Randomly assigned" means the choice is up to leadership, since it is the one who conducts the random assignment. "Randomly assigned" is not the same as "leadership has almost nothing to do with it." I am going to treat the former as the way it is. When I state that, it appears that this is a high-control group. I place this here for future readers to be warned as to what they are getting into.

No, it doesn’t. The congregation forms committees who do things like find the new building site or buy an existing building, arrange the selection of who goes to which new congregation and so forth.

It is not a high control group in this regard and you would do well to stop making stuff up, or outright lying, about another Mennonite church group. I d not run around lying about yours and would appreciate it if you showed me the same respect.

Are Holdemans free to generally move from one church to another? It seems like they are pretty free to relicate in order to start up a new congregation (some are doing this in my area. They are moving in from other states).
Are people more or are they less free to decide on their own to go to the new B or C congression? Or isn’t there much leaway?

[JohnH]

Are Holdemans free to generally move from one church to another? It seems like they are pretty free to relicate in order to start up a new congregation (some are doing this in my area. They are moving in from other states).
Are people more or are they less free to decide on their own to go to the new B or C congression? Or isn’t there much leaway?

Yes, people can move anywhere they want to and this fequently happens. Sometimes people move somewhere there is no congregation. Once there are a few families, then usually church services begin. If no ordained person moves in then church services are simply conducted without one; sometimes they can try to get a "non resident" minister or deacon who will travel out periodically. Otherwise, it just has to wait until there is an ordination.

Some people don't really enjoy the process of a church getting too big and then the area becoming a multi-church location, and prefer to move somewhere new or to a smaller congregation elsewhere. But some people prefer staying in the place they have already lived, like in California where there are typically 600+ members within a 20 minute drive of each other.

To me, the operative word is "assigned"
Assigned to me, means, i am told what to do. I am assigned job duties.

It might not be the preachers that assign who goes to congregation B or C. But someone (or maybe the wheel of names,) does. And that is control.

I'm not sure what the problem is. If a group of friends and I decide to drive somewhere, we all agree and "assign" each other which cars we will go in. Is it control? I guess it is to a certain point, but it has to be decided somehow, if we have two 5 passenger cars, and there are 10 people.

The people of that congregation agrees how it is going to cease to exist and then the people of that congregation decide how they want to form 2 new ones. The people might decide a certain way to "assign" (sorry if that word offended you) how people will be divided up between the two congregations now. There is nothing at all "high control" or "controlling" about this. The process does need to be fair and also needs to be conducted in such a way that a large majority of people don't choose congregation B or C, leading to one that would be unmanageably big and more expensive to build.

If someone doesn't want to be involved in this, they can move somewhere else. They could move somewhere else and start a new congregation. They could move to an existing small one. They could move to another place that has multiple congregations close together.

They could also speak up in the meetings if they really do feel strongly they need to be at B or C.