Franconia Mennonite Conference

Franconia Mennonite Conference is a regional conference of Mennonite Church USA based in Harleysville, Pennsylvania, with 42 congregations in Pennsylvania, Georgia, New Jersey, and Vermont, 22 conference related ministries, and 12 partners in mission. It is a member of Mennonite World Conference.

As the oldest Mennonite body in America, Franconia Conference is a three-century-old Mennonite “congregation of congregations” in southeastern Pennsylvania. Comprising about fifty with some 7,000 members, it dates the arrival of its first members at Germantown near Philadelphia in 1683, and the first baptisms a quarter-century later in 1708.

The caution which delayed the first baptisms is symbolic of the desire for authentic church order, characteristic of the Franconia tradition. The act of conferring is at the heart of the historic Mennonite concern to “give and receive counsel” in the fellowship or body of Christ’s followers. Thus, Mennonites have found the English term “”—used by Methodists since 1744—as the best equivalent for the German term Rath (counsel), originally used in this community of immigrants from Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands. 60 miles (100 kilometers) to the west, Mennonite leaders centered in Lancaster County proceeded similarly, using the word Zusammenkunft (gathering).

Drawing on European conferences dating back to 1527, Mennonite bishops who had immigrated to present-day Bucks, Montgomery, Chester and Berks Counties endorsed in 1725 a “brotherly agreement” originally drawn up in the Dutch Republic in 1632 and affirmed by Swiss leaders in 1660. By 1735 the American bishops were conferring repeatedly over new issues in their American environment. Their central concern was how to preserve and keep vital the fundamental issues of non-violent witness to their Christian faith.

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