Elmo Stoll (March 5, 1944 – September 2, 1998) was a former Old Order Amish bishop, writer and founder of the "Christian Communities". He was one of the few Amish who "have risen to prominence over the years".
Elmo Stoll was born in Litchfield, Michigan, son of Peter and Anna Stoll, née Wagler. He was one of eleven children. Elmo still being a small child, his family moved to Piketon, Ohio, and then, in the early 1950, to a new Amish settlement of Aylmer, Ontario. In 1966 and '67 he was a teacher in a Beachy Amish school in Wellesley, Ontario. In 1968 he did not follow his family, who moved to Honduras, but stayed in Ontario, where he worked for Pathway Publishers. On June 4, 1970 he married Elizabeth Miller. He was ordained by lot as an Amish minister on April 14, 1971. He was ordained bishop by lot on October 10, 1984 and as such he forced the members of his church to dress plainer and he also enforced other changes in the direction of stricter plainness and less technology, e. g. he forbade to use of electronic calculators. Moreover, he became an ardent preacher. He also wrote a regular column in the Amish magazine Family Life, until he left the Amish and created the “Christian Communities”.
Elmo Stoll helped a young couple, seekers of French-Canadian background, Marc Villeneuve and his wife, to join the Amish community at Aylmer. This young man started to raise questions about several religious practices and was backed by Elmo's sons and more and more by Elmo himself. In December 1989 the ministers of the Aylmer Amish settlement met to discuss five issues, Elmo and his followers had raised: Evangelizing outside the Plain churches, the use of the English language to reach seekers, Christian community of goods (like the Hutterites), the mandatory wearing of hats for men and the question of fellowship with other plain churches. Elmo Stoll was favoring fellowship with the Noah Hoover Mennonites and the Orthodox Mennonites. No decision was made after this meeting. Elmo Stoll then explained his ideas in the Book Let us reason together.