The Evangelical United Mennonite conference of 1882

The first General Conference of the Evangelical United Mennonites met at Bethel in Elkhart County, Indiana, on 4–7 October 1882. Delegates came from Ontario, Indiana and Michigan, and Pennsylvania, with representatives of the church’s printing work. Solomon Eby chaired the gathering, and English and German secretaries recorded its business.

The conference recommended courses of reading for prospective ministers, including Scripture and Menno Simons’s writings. It arranged support for mission work in Kansas, appointed leaders for the printing establishment, and considered relationships with the Brethren in Christ. Its resolutions also addressed worship and the conduct expected of church members.

The Evangelical United Mennonites had already formed through a merger in 1879. The 1882 minutes document a meeting of that existing body, not its founding. They provide a named, dated conference to read alongside the chart’s abbreviated evangelical-conference label, whose exact intended identification is not proven. This history leads toward the Mennonite Brethren in Christ, distinct from the Canadian Evangelical Mennonite Conference that later developed from Kleine Gemeinde.