User:Wikimenno/Lancaster Mennonite Conference

Lancaster Mennonite Conference is a conference member of Mennonite Church USA, and is a body of 172 Mennonite churches in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States, consisting of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Maryland. There are also a few Conference churches in Massachusetts, Delaware, Virginia, and the city of Washington D.C., as well as two in Hawaii.

Organization
The churches of the Lancaster Mennonite Conference make up 26 districts including: Bowmansville-Reading, Elizabethtown, Ephrata, Groffdale, Harrisburg, Juniata, Lancaster, Landisville, Lebanon, Lititz, Manheim, Manor, Martindale, Mellinger, Millwood, New Danville, New York City, North Penn, Pequea Valley, Philadelphia, Spanish, Washington-Baltimore, Weaverland-Northeast Pennsylvania, Williamsport-Milton, Willow Street-Strasburg, and York-Adams Districts.

The conference office is located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The office employs Joanne H. Dietzel, Conference Coordinator; L. Keith Weaver, Conference Moderator; Dale W. Stoltzfus, Conference Minister; Jon Heinly, Conference Youth Minister; and other staff. The Bishop Board, a collection of all the bishops from the districts in the Conference, is the executive board of the Lancaster Mennonite Conference. The Conference Leadership Assembly, composed of all bishops, ministers, deacons, deaconesses, and chaplains in the Conference, is the governing body of Lancaster Mennonite Conference.

Lancaster Mennonite Conference publishes a magazine Shalom News, and oversees several agencies, including Eastern Mennonite Missions, Friendship Community, Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society, Lancaster Mennonite School, Landis Homes, Philhaven, and Sharing Programs.

History
The Lancaster Mennonite Conference first convened in 1711 after the Swiss-Palatine immigrants had established themselves in Pequea Valley, Chester, now Lancaster county the previous year, to select by drawing lots who would return to Europe to bring the part of their families whom they had left behind. In 1725, five representatives, Martin Baer, Hans Burkholtzer, Christian Herr, Benedikt Hirsche, and Johannes Bowman, attended the first general Mennonite Conference when the Dordrecht Confession was translated into English.

Additional Mennonite immigrants joined the settlement in 1711, 1717, 1727, and at later periods. It is estimated that by 1735 over five hundred families had emigrated from Switzerland and the Palatinate and settled in Lancaster county. They overflowed into what are now neighboring counties and established daughter colonies in Maryland, Virginia, New York, Canada, and Ohio.

Semiannual conferences were held at the Mellinger meetinghouse in the fall and at one of the three Rohrerstown meetinghouses in the spring as far back as records are extant, about 1740. Beginning in 1953, the spring meeting was moved to East Petersburg. Here all Conference decisions were made and approved or rejected.

In 1971 the Lancaster Mennonite Conference joined the Assembly of the Mennonite Church, now Mennonite Church USA. The conference reorganized in 1977 to more closely follow the structure of the Mennonite Church.

Ordination of Women
Lancaster Mennonite Conference has not historically ordained women as ministers, instead "commissioning" them for service.