Development of Church Life in the Older Congregations / 221 The Bethel Congregation at Wadsworth

As already noted, this Mennonite congregation dates from the 1830's. During the late 1800's the problems of language change, evening meetings, and Sunday school became issues. Wisler and his opposition to Sunday school had a considerable following in Medina County. Six families led by Henry Kindig opposed Wisler and were excommunicated. Having no church building in which to worship they met regularly in private homes. Efforts at reconciliation failed and in 1885 the followers of Wisler decided to build a new church. It was the wish of the Kindig group that they could help in building the church and use it on alternate Sundays. This was not granted; so in 1889 a Sunday school for the Kindig group was organized by Bishop Adam Kornhaus of the Martins Church in Wayne County.'

Though the Guilford Church (built in 1856) was not available for Sunday school, the Kindig group did finally gain access to it and used it for Sunday school services. In 1891 John S. Coffman conducted evangelistic meetings, and a large ingathering of people increased the church's membership so that a new building was erected-the Bethel Church of Wadsworth. Thus two buildings were in use by the same congregation. The Guilford meetinghouse was used jointly as a place of worship with the Wisler group and this continued till 1930 when the Bethel Church began to hold all its meetings in its own building.

In Medina County the families of Kreiders, Linds, Newcomers, Stauffers, and Rohrers were important in the survival and growth of the congregation. Evangelistic meetings and the Sunday school movement played no little role in saving this congregation from possible extinction.

From 1917 to 1952 Samuel D. Rohrer served as minister to the Bethel Church. J. Robert Kreider was elected in 1943 to assist Rohrer and with the latter's retirement became full pastor. In 1952 a church council was formed to help plan the overall church program, to be available to the minister for consultation, and to plan adult midweek meetings. Aden J. Yoder is the present pastor.

The Beech Church

This Amish Mennonite congregation has throughout its history taken an active part in the wider work of the church. During 186275, the years of the Amish General Conference (the Diener Ver-