208 / Missions and the New Churches, 1920-1945

Morgantown, Pennsylvania, remembered returning in 1920 from a meeting in Ohio where missions were emphasized. He felt led to promote a Sunday school in an abandoned Baptist church in a rural community near Elverson. Known as the Rock Church it continued as a mission Sunday school until 1936 when it became a separate congregation with forty-five charter members.'

Growth of New Congregations

Members of the Ohio Conference churches found their way to Florida in the early 1930's and what is now the Bay Shore Church at Sarasota had its beginning then. The families petitioned the Ohio Conference to organize a congregation and on April 17, 1945, this was effected by O. N. Johns and E. B. Frey. On February 3, 1946, a new church building was dedicated with an audience of 500 persons present. Growth of the church has been due in large part to moving of families from the North to this agricultural and recreational center in Florida. Timothy H. Brenneman, a former missionary to South America, became pastor in 1945 and in 1949 was ordained bishop.'

Mission Board and local congregations frequently worked together in founding a new church. The Dillonyale Mennonite Church in the coal-mining district about twenty miles from Wheeling, West Virginia, is an example. In the early 1930's Dan Raber, itinerant evangelist from the Plainyiew Church in Portage County, made frequent trips to this community. Here he made friends, distributed tracts, and preached persuasive sermons that brought converts. Raber was known for his ability to work effectively in unchurched areas of Kentucky and West Virginia, driving through the mountainous areas in his Model T Ford.

In 1933 E. B. Stoltzfus and I. B. Witmer were sent by the Mission Board into areas explored by Raber "to consider more fully the advisability of taking the work over and the construction of the tabernacle."

In the summer of 1942 a Christian Workers' Committee was organized in the Kidron Mennonite Church in Wayne County. A subcommittee consisting of Vilas Zuercher, Oswin Gerber, and Reuben Hofstetter made a trip to Dillonvale in August and found Delina Stoudenheimer, thought to be one of Raber's converts, active in meeting relief and spiritual needs of the people. She welcomed the group from Kidron which included the Gerber Sisters' Trio who