19.

The Conference in

Retrospect and Prospect

The churches of the Ohio and Eastern Mennonite Conference by 1965 have a history of over one and a half centuries. They have grown up first in colonial Pennsylvania, then with the state of Ohio and the new nation. They once numbered a few hundred members; they now number 13,000. The transformations from scattered, struggling communities on the frontier to the present well-organized, prosperous communities are rather remarkable. The country at the same time has moved from loosely connected and isolated folk cultures to a national civilization bound together by what technology has wrought in production, transportation, and communication.

What impresses the historian is the manner in which the churches have grown in organization and activity. In the mid-nineteenth century, there were only local church organizations, informal Sunday visiting, a few social gatherings for young people, and more or less informal visits of German-speaking preachers and bishops among the scattered settlements.

By contrast, a hundred years later, the Ohio and Eastern Mennonite Conference churches are engaged in innumerable activities: missionary outreach in city, country, and overseas; youth program of service and Christian witness; local educational programs in Sunday schools and summer Bible schools; the operation of homes for the aged, and camp programs for children; and an extensive women's program of charities that reaches around the globe. Scores of its members have entered sacrificially into missionary and service projects in all parts of the world. A well-equipped and wellstaffed high school serves a large segment of the youth in the pursuit of an education. The church communities are seldom isolated as they once were. They have contributed to the larger economy in worthy fashion and members of Ohio Mennonite churches are in many professions, trades, and occupations. Eastern

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