A Conference in Transition / 271

meeting of the Ohio Mennonite Mission Board which usually occupies two or three days. There are the routine minutes and business as well as inspirational addresses. But here again it is clear that genuine zeal for missions is in the hearts and lives of the members of the congregations and the many missionaries they send out to unchurched areas of the state and beyond.

As noted elsewhere, a host of new congregations have come about as a result of local congregational outreach. The missionary zeal of Ohio churches has been nurtured a long while and in many different ways. For example, beginning in 1900 and continuing for more than fifty years the West Liberty community had a quarterly mission meeting for the churches of the area. Out of these meetings, say many of the .local members, came their. missionary urge to go to foreign countries and to establish and maintain home mission posts.

There has been in recent years an annual mission workers' retreat, usually held at Camp Luz. Here the various missionaries and their families gather for days of rest and fellowship.

A number of workshops have been sponsored in late years as the churches come to grips with problems of the urban church, race relations, and new methods of church extension. Meeting in large cities such as Columbus for several days and in small groups the actualities of church extension are studied, usually under the guidance of experienced urban church workers, sometimes from other denominations.

However, the growing edge of the conference is found beyond the conferences and workshops. The growing edge is what is going on in small village chapels, in southern Ohio mountains, in urban Negro communities, in sprawling suburbs, and in university centers.

The erection of new churches in the decades of 1945-65 has gone forward steadily as congregation after congregation either outgrows its plant or desires to move from its temporary place to a better one. The older congregations tend to erect large buildings. The newer congregations and outposts prefer smaller buildings and as soon as these smaller buildings become filled the tendency in many cases is to "swarm" to other locations rather than to build larger and larger church edifices. It appears that the typical Mennonite congregation that has recently been planted prefers the small fellowship to the larger congregation.

The mission outreach of the churches is combined with the