Mennonite World Conference

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The Mennonite World Conference (MWC) is a global community of Christian churches that facilitates community between Anabaptist-related churches and relates to other Christian world communions and organizations.

History[]

The first Mennonite World Conference was held in Basel in 1925.^[1] Its main purpose was to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Anabaptism. An assembly is convened approximately every six or seven years.

Christian Neff (1863–1946), a Mennonite minister in Germany, is often called the "father" of the Mennonite World Conference. Neff, through the Conference of Mennonites in South Germany, issued the call for the first gathering in 1925, and was president of the following meetings in 1930 and 1936.^[2]

In 2018, the organization would have 1.47 million members gathered in 107 national denominations.^[3] The MWC prints a quarterly news publication in three languages—Spanish (as Correo), English (Courier), and French (Courrier.) This project began in 1986. The Mennonite World Conference considers that its mission is to (1) be a global community of faith in the Anabaptist-tradition, (2) facilitate relationships between Anabaptist-related churches worldwide, and (3) relate to other Christian world communions and organizations.^[4]

The official repository of Mennonite World Conference is the Mennonite Church USA Archives.

Conferences[]

Year	Location	Conference Focus
1925	Basel, Switzerland	400th anniversary of Anabaptism
1930	Free City of Danzig	Mennonite Relief Efforts
1936	Amsterdam and Elspeet, Netherlands	400th anniversary of Menno Simons' conversion
1948	Goshen, Indiana, and North Newton, Kansas, United States	Relief, Nonconformity to the World, Faith and Life, Missions, Young People's Work, A Young People's Program, the Peace Testimony, Colonization, Institutions and Mennonite Life, and Christian Education[5]
1952	Bettingen, Switzerland	The Church of Christ and Her Commission
1957	Karlsruhe, West Germany	The Gospel of Jesus Christ in the World
1962	Kitchener, Ontario, Canada	The Lordship of Christ
1967	Amsterdam, Netherlands	The Witness of the Holy Spirit
1972	Curitiba, Brazil	Jesus Christ Reconciles
1978	Wichita, Kansas, United States	The Kingdom of God in a Changing World
1984	Strasbourg, France	God's People Serve in Hope
1990	Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada	Witnessing to Christ in Today's World
1997	Calcutta, India	Hear what the Spirit is Saying to the Churches
2003	Bulawayo, Zimbabwe	Sharing Gifts in Suffering and in Joy
2009	Asunción, Paraguay	Come together in the way of Jesus Christ[6]
2015	Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, United States	Walking with God
2022	Samarang, Indonesia	Following Jesus together across barriers[7]

Notes[]

References[]

• Mennonite Encyclopedia, Harold S. Bender, Cornelius J. Dyck, Dennis D. Martin, et al., editors

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mennonite World Conference.

• Official website
• Member churches and General Council
• Mennonite World Conference in the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online