NOTE: Dan Shenk was a member of Assembly, 1974-78, 1980-81 and 1986-90. He and his family began attending Faith Mennonite Church in 1989 and continue as members of Faith. He was a reporter at The Elkhart Truth 1986-99. Since 1999 he has worked three-quarters time as owner-operator of CopyProof, an editing business, and one-quarter time as a chess organizer and instructor.

Introduction

The mission of Assembly Mennonite Church in its first 15 years can be viewed from three angles:

1. Mission to and with Goshen College students, ex-students and graduates.
2. Mission to the world.
3. Mission to the Goshen community.

The first two are easier to grasp than the third. In fact, the Assembly gets relatively high marks regarding the first two. The third, however, is more complicated – and the report is more of a mixed bag, as we might have said in the '70s.

When serious discussions began in 1973 about forming an "Assembly" of small groups and house churches, there was a ready-made population poised, as it were, to take the plunge into a new kind of congregational experience – one characterized by greater participation by most members of the "priesthood of believers" (based on gift discernment); an emphasis on small-group life that, in significance, matched Sunday worship; diffused, diverse leadership that included women in equal measure; mutual accountability; and sincere efforts to put into practice what was being learned as the community discerned together around God's word. Although C. Norman Kraus, one of the early articulators of the Assembly vision, said that "a church exists for mission as a fire exists for burning," it wasn't immediately clear what Assembly's mission(s) would be – beyond the Goshen College campus.

I was part of the "ready-made population," open to participating in something different. I had tired of attending Clinton Frame, my parents' church; College Mennonite seemed too big and impersonal; and because I was working in Elkhart half-way through my college experience, GC's Campus Church didn't seem right for me either anymore. Sometimes I simply didn't go to church in those years.

In the fall of 1973 I took a "Life in the Spirit Seminar" with Harold Bauman, then Goshen College campus pastor. I recall that I approached Harold after the final session (in December) and asked him if there was any church in the area where some of the concepts addressed in the seminar were being put into practice. He thought for a moment, then said, "There's a new group called the Assembly being formed now. They'll have their first public meeting in a few weeks in early January." (Sorry, Harold, if that's not an exact quote, but it's pretty close. One has a way of remembering important milestones in one's life.)

The Early Days

That first meeting was in the basement of Coffman Hall the first Sunday of January 1974. I came the second Sunday when the fledging group met in Kratz-Miller lounge. Although I wasn't part of the planning of Assembly in any way, I was immediately drawn to what Assembly was trying to do and be. I remember that the Assembly quickly had nearly 100 participants Sunday mornings in early '74. And people kept coming ... Talk about church growth! I recall that by the fall of '74 regular Assembly participation on Sundays ranged between 125 and 150. Something had to be done, based on the original vision regarding numbers. The "rule of thumb" was that when a microphone was needed or Sunday attendance was exceeding 100 (whichever came first), it was time to divide. Not only was the intimacy of small groups valued, so was the importance of knowing (virtually) everyone with whom one worshipped on Sunday morning.

In an emotionally intense meeting in Kratz-Miller lounge in the fall of '74 the Assembly decided to divide into three clusters – in order to allow room for more growth. With Jerry Kennell moderating the meeting, progress was finally made in the division process when the non-covenanted attenders (who had been doing much of the speaking) finally offered to leave so that the covenanted members could make some decisions.

In addition to a Campus Cluster and a Community Cluster, a third cluster formed. It began meeting in the lobby of the High Park medical center on the west side of Main Street – technically off campus, but its members were still largely connected with the college. Seemingly no one wanted a Sunday service that was big and impersonal. By late '74 and early '75 about 200 people were attending the three clusters on Sunday mornings, and small groups were dividing faster than amoebas. (In terms of sheer Sunday-morning numbers, Assembly's halcyon days of the mid-'70s were matched or exceeded only by the boom times of the early '90s when Campus Cluster had 140-150 attending on some Sundays, with 70-80 attenders typically in Community Cluster.)

From the beginning I was part of Community Cluster. My involvement with this cluster was 1974-78, one year in 1980-81 when Vera and I were in Elkhart for a year of seminary, and 1986-90 (after moving back from Iowa and before helping to launch Faith Mennonite Church, an outreach congregation spawned by Assembly).

All three clusters had an ongoing commitment to meeting needs of the world – especially what had come to be called the Two-Thirds World – as expressed by the 1 percent fund, an idea that I believe was initially presented by David Shank, former missionary in Belgium. Many Assembly members throughout its 30-year history have been commissioned to personally engage in mission and service in various parts of the world.

In the mid-1970s, however, the Campus Cluster was focusing on reaching students ... and others flitting about the college-campus light bulb like moths in summer. After a year and a half the High Park Cluster had decreased in size, largely due to college-related transience, so by the fall of '76 Assembly had re-formed into two clusters, a structure that would be maintained until 1994.

From the start, the Campus Cluster had the clearest sense of mission of any of the Assembly clusters. A March 1983 document titled "Campus Cluster Mission and Ministries" well summarizes what the campus folks had been doing for most of nine years ... and continued to do until the conclusion of the Campus Cluster's separate existence in 1994.

 

1. Open, invitational stance with respect to students and others preparing for future service. People are drawn into the church by friendship, warmth, joyous worship and demonstrated love. They can be attracted by evidence of authenticity in a congregation's response to God's call to faithful discipleship and the presence of the Spirit.
2. Support for discernment of gifts and apprenticeship in congregational life and leadership. We can provide, for students and others ready for commitment to a congregation, involvement in congregational fellowship, planning, decision-making and leadership.
3. Expression of discipleship in life decisions. An important function of Assembly life, especially in our small group functioning, is helping members express their discipleship in their daily work and in their preparation and planning for living as disciples in the days and years ahead.
4. Support of ministries of Assembly members in the occupations in which they serve during the week, whether campus or community oriented. We want to recognize that these can be channels for witness and service, and can be strengthened by awareness and mutual concern of the small group.
5. Special ministry to students searching for faith. This could include occasional forum sessions or arrangements for one-to-one counseling dealing with faith questions. This should be done in consultation with the Campus Ministries leaders.
6. Open households – families or households can have special ministries caring for troubled or transient people who need shelter, or in extending the gift of hospitality in other ways.
7. Advocacy ministries. We have some members with an awareness of the local political and economic system, with the social and economic status, and with the skills for organization and communication that make an advocacy ministry for the disadvantaged a possibility and responsibility for us.
8. Verbal sharing of faith. It has been well documented that service ministries do not draw people into the life of the church. Sharing our story of life in Christ with excitement and warmth and love does. New Christians are some of the best bridges for bringing others. We want to increase our freedom and willingness to witness to God's love in us.

Community Cluster Beginnings

The Community Cluster had quite an odyssey. Both in terms of mission and location (the two were inextricably linked), members and attenders of Community Cluster wrestled long and hard with what it meant to be faithful in the community in which we lived.

The first step for Community Cluster was meeting separately. We called it "getting off campus." Although largely symbolic, this move in the fall of '74 did help Community Cluster begin to assume an identity separate from Campus Cluster.

Our meeting places varied. We gathered sometimes in the basement of Oak Court at Greencroft. We met at Debbie Werbrouck's Dance Studio on East Lincoln Avenue, a few doors west of Provident Bookstore. We met at Rieth-Rohrer-Ehret Funeral Home on Main Street. Regarding the latter two, someone joked that the cluster was becoming the province of the "quick and the dead."

I recall that some of us took a kind of convoluted pride in our nomadic existence (a la the children of Israel with their portable tabernacle in the wilderness). After all, this was yet further evidence of Assembly being "different" from other churches. And "church," of course, was not a building but people. Then, too, buildings cost money – money that would be better spent on pressing needs around the world, as well as needs in the Goshen community.

The Rutschman 'Needs Study'

In October 1975 Mary Ellen Meyer, a member of Campus Cluster, on behalf of Small Group 4 of Congregation B (the early name for the Community Cluster), drafted a two-page "Proposal for Assembly-Sponsored Study of Goshen Community Needs and Services." One person was to spend six months attempting to meet the following six goals:

 

1. list all current service agencies (civil government, independent, church) with their objectives, resources (personal and financial), clientele, history and present program;
2. ascertain what social needs are unmet among minorities and impoverished persons/groups (conversing with those groups as well as [those in] "a");
3. enter into conversation with churches and agencies on how to meet needs;
4. ascertain what means (personal, financial, organizational) necessary to more adequately respond to needs in "b";
5. ascertain ways of bringing together this type of service with church witness (including what models of church are right and capable of this type of "mission");
6. ascertain whether/what adaptations, modifications in Assembly would be helpful for this mission.

With a support group backing him up, Tom Rutschman, an Assembly member who had grown up in Latin America as a "missionary kid," was selected to do the primary legwork of such a needs study. Tom has the distinction of becoming Assembly's first salaried employee, receiving about $2,000 for his work.

Since 1979, Tom and his wife, Disa, have been doing missionary work in Spain and Sweden, Disa's native country. But in late '75 and early '76 Tom threw himself into a major study of mission issues and factors in Goshen, Indiana. On May 2, 1976, Tom presented a two-page report to the congregation titled "Recommendations for Assembly Involvement in Meeting Some Community Needs." Later that month he produced a 10-page "Complete Report of Recommendations for Assembly Involvement in Meeting Some Community Needs." Note the unassuming, yet realistic, use of "Some" in both titles!

Rutschman's research unearthed a number of unmet needs – things that had been "falling through the cracks" (a popular expression in the '70s) – in the Maple City. He called his proposals/recommendations "modest and small ways in which Assembly can become involved in meeting some needs of the Goshen community." He went on to say:

We believe it is best to begin relating to low-income families in fairly inconspicuous ways. ... In expressing Christ's love, the church has a specific mission to minister to the physical and spiritual needs of people – especially for the more oppressed around us. With this mission in mind, involvement in the world around us is not a matter of squeezing another activity in, but becomes a primary expression of our faith.

Rutschman identified three categories of recommended involvements: (1) things that individuals and small groups could do, (2) "projects of an immediate nature that require decision-making in the Assembly context" and (3) long-range possibilities. In the first category, Rutschman mentioned three things:

1. Volunteer driving for The Window (an emergency need agency sponsored by Church Women United).
2. Tutoring for students with special needs.
3. Participating in the Big Brother/Big Sister program of Goshen.

In the second category, Rutschman had six proposals:

1. Asking several Assembly families or individuals to "adopt" some of the families that were then living in Man-to-Man (later LaCasa) housing. Related was an impending request that Assembly persons help with maintenance of a specific Man-to-Man house.
2. Commissioning 2-4 people to work on dental needs of lower-income families.
3. Designating several Assembly members to help with the Citizens' Study Commission on Poor Relief for Elkhart Township and surrounding townships as part of a statewide study intended to make recommendations on how to improve the township-trustee relief system.
4. Maintaining a compassion-loan fund for people in the community. Noted Rutschman: "Special care should be given to remain in contact with the families. There should also be the possibility of making the loan a gift if repayment is not possible."
5. Providing Assembly-paid personnel and housing for a home day-care center in conjunction with Walnut Hill Day Care in north Goshen (located at Walnut Hill Mennonite Church).
6. Appointing someone to be a local legislative monitor. Stated Rutschman: "This person would be responsible for making the rest of Assembly aware of directions taken on local, state and national levels which would affect low-income families."

In the third category, Rutschman had two proposals:

1. "Appointing members to a medical task force to work toward creating a free medical clinic in the future. These persons would be involved with others in the community who are working toward the same goal. An initial step would be documenting medical needs."
2. "Challenging members to form fellowships willing to assume specific missions." (This was patterned after the Church of the Savior in Washington, D.C.) Three specific examples presented by Rutschman: providing temporary housing, an alternative structure to deal with juvenile delinquency, or a "drop-in" house in East or North Goshen.

Rutschman concluded his May 2 recommendations by saying, "It is hoped that some of these ideas will spark a challenge for somebody, and that bigger and more committed involvement in Goshen will evolve as a result of it."

On the last page of his 10-page report later in May 1976, Rutschman expanded on the conclusion of his earlier report, touching on the spiritual as well as the physical:

You might ... have noted that nothing has been said about spiritual needs of low-income families. It is true that many families do not regularly attend [church] anywhere although the children may be involved in the bus outreach of one of the local churches. Can we adjust to having people with different backgrounds in our congregation? Are we willing to modify our vocabulary, and maybe our interests in some of the finer points of theology, or even our emphasis on singing? (Or do we just admit that we cannot gear ourselves to meet the needs of everybody, and not change[?]) Or do we perhaps commission a few people to form another congregation that has more community outreach? Do we take the approach that spiritual needs cannot be met until the physical needs are met – or should we try to meet both simultaneously?

 

We do trust that as individuals and families from Assembly relate more closely with other families in some of the ways outlined in this study, that our faith will also be shared.

Whatever we choose to do as a church, let us remember that our action is more than a humanistic concern for people which motivates us but Christ's loves which constrains us to feed the hungry, bring the stranger into our homes, clothe the naked, minister to the ill, and visit the prisoner (Matthew 25). If we believe this, we will be ministering to the spiritual needs of the person while trying to meet the physical needs as well.

Mary Ellen Meyer, who drafted the proposal that Rutschman be hired to do the needs study, said in July 1999 that a number of items identified in the study did get implemented. While some of these things were already being done by Assembly members and attenders on an individual basis, she noted, the study clearly induced further involvement – and new involvement – in several areas. Quoting Mary Ellen:

Regarding Category I, some individuals were probably involved in all [three] of those, but I can't name names. A number of us drove for The Window, and some college students (and probably others) tutored, and some students were Big Brothers/Sisters. However, some of this was going on already – it would be hard for me to say how much was a result of Tom's study.

 

Regarding Category II, (1) we had a 'Man to Man' family. I can't remember if others did or not and, again, I can't say what the sequence was. (2) Dental care was worked at with a first medical clinic at St. Mark's United Methodist Church. (3) Several Assembly members took part in the study on improving the trustee/poor relief system. (4) I'd have to check dates to know if the 2% fund was a result of this, but I suppose it was. (5) I don't have a memory of this. (6) I think we did this, for a while, but I don't remember who – Tom himself? Becky Yoder?

Regarding Category III, (1) This effort was worked on in various ways over a long period of time – I suppose you could say ending eventually in the Maple City Health Care Center. (2) The idea of mission groups had been talked about and described by people who had been part of the Church of the Savior in Washington, D.C. (Christine Weaver, Margaret and Tim Thut) many times through our history. Examples of such groups include work with Central American refugees (the sanctuary movement of the 1980s), a South African concerns group, an international group and a prayer/meditation group. However, it seems to me that most of our small groups have not been willing/able to embrace it. Maybe we have too much history from the house churches of a primary fellowship/nurture emphasis? We have tended to see small groups as supporting people in individual mission. Generally, this model just hasn't worked very well for Assembly."

Would a Building Help or Hinder Mission?

For a couple of years in Community Cluster (and in the meetings of servant-administrators who conducted the overall business of Assembly) there was a rich intermingling of discussions about local mission and whether the Assembly should have a building. The need for a regular place to hang one's hat/park one's bike – and keep Sunday school supplies, for example – was being felt the most keenly by an increasing number of members of Community Cluster, but there also was a growing sense from the folks in Campus Cluster that a regular place big enough for Sabbatical Sundays would be helpful.

"Sabbatical" locations included the Union Stage, Schrock Pavilion of Shanklin Park, the old seminary building/Newcomer Center, Greencroft Senior Center … but even those weren't always easy to reserve on a dependable basis. More than once Assembly folks were overheard musing about foxes having holes, birds having nests but Assemblyites having no place to lay their respective heads ... or backpacks.

But the initial vision, which did not call for a building, remained strong, and for every suggestion the first couple of years that a building search begin, an almost equally strong chorus questioned such a step.

An ongoing debate in Assembly regarding mission from 1974 to 1989 had to do with the nature of the congregation and the unchurched people whom Assembly was trying to reach – especially by folks in Community Cluster. In most cases the "targets" of outreach were less educated and at lower income levels than most Assembly members, though many college students (and recent graduates) qualified as low-income as well – sometimes by design, sometimes by default.

The questions became: If blue-collar people start coming to Assembly, will they find our Sunday worship services and small-group meetings meaningful? If they don't, how much are we willing to change the way we do church? And how much can we change?

An actual example of the kind of dilemma faced by Assembly and its prospective newcomers went like this: A male factory worker in his mid-20s became part of an Assembly small group, meeting with that group periodically, along with his wife and small children. Although the primary connection with Assembly was through small group, on occasion the young family would come to church on Sunday. One day after the worship service the young man (as he recounted the situation later) was approached by a member of Assembly who asked a few questions in an effort to get acquainted. When the young man said he worked in a factory, the Assembly member asked something to the effect: "So, are you going to work in a factory all your life? What other goals do you have?" The conversation ended abruptly. The young man later told his small group, with some feeling, that he clearly didn't fit into Assembly's Sunday setting because his goal was to keep working in a factory and putting bread on the table for his family.

In his 1980 paper (examined more fully below) titled "A Critique of Assembly Evangelism," Gary Martin had a section on this very point. He titled one of his recommendations "Greater Openness to Certain Differing Views."

Is there some way that the Assembly could make a career military officer recently converted to Christ but not to a pacifist understanding of the gospel feel accepted? How about a male chauvinist? A follower of Jerry Fahlwell [sic]? Someone without a college degree? Someone who eats beef six days a week? Can the Assembly accept persons where they are and carefully provide nurture where it is necessary, or must they be college educated, pacifist, feminist, near vegetarian, socially active, third-worldly minded, driving 10-year old cars or, better yet, 10-year old bicycles?

When Assembly began to explore the possibility of having its own building, there was never any serious consideration of constructing a new building. The only option was taking an existing structure and renovating it for church use. But even at that point consensus hadn't been reached about having a permanent church home.

I recall going with a group of folks to the south end of North Eighth Street to tour a structure that had been a machine shop and laundromat. The building was located, coincidentally, across the street from the Bridge Street house where a number of Assembly members had become a living presence for a couple of years on Goshen's north side. (By 1999, the building was again a laundromat and, in another coincidence, two or three households identifying with Faith Mennonite Church, the Assembly-spawned outreach congregation, lived in the Mercer Manor apartments that eventually were built adjacent to the building.)

At any rate, in late '77 or early '78 a group of us walked through the ramshackle structure, pacing distances, calculating square footages, pondering possibilities. Although I remember feeling that the setting could work for the kind of mission to Goshen's low-income community that was being discussed – plus the already established neighborhood presence of the Bridge Street folks – another point of view prevailed, and the place was not purchased.

Other settings explored included what later became Indiana-Michigan Mennonite Conference headquarters on a second floor on South Main Street, as well as two former nursing homes: the Simpson home in the 200 block of South Sixth Street and the nearby Andresen home. Concerns about such facilities included mission to neighborhoods, distance from the college and the fact that older Assembly members such as Mary Good (retired missionary to India) would have trouble with the steps.

Eventually, interest centered on the Jean Lee Originals factory building on South 11th Street, hard in the shadow of the State Highway facility to the west and the T&M Rubber factory to the north. Immediately to the south were two houses and a garage owned by the Lower family. Jean Lee manufactured, among other things, outfits for cheerleaders, including the "Honey Bears" of the Chicago Bears National Football League team. On several occasions people starting talking about "converting" the factory building into a church building. In all likelihood, the word play was intentional.

Members' meetings took place in 1978 about two things: whether to purchase a building for Assembly use, then whether to purchase and renovate the Jean Lee building. Because of the importance of the decision in the life of the congregation, both clusters were involved and an attempt was made to have everyone (not just most of the members) come to consensus about the rightness of the decisions.

James Gingerich, a resident of the Bridge Street house, was the last holdout for not buying the Jean Lee building. He felt that getting a building could too easily become a means for getting more "comfortable" as a congregation rather than continuing to work at being an intentional presence in a low-income neighborhood (on the north side, for example). He and others also had stewardship concerns about the expense of a building, along with a feeling that too many church facilities are used just one day a week. A decade later James would return to Goshen with a medical degree and be instrumental in establishing the Maple City Health Care Center in north Goshen, a medical clinic with a sliding fee scale primarily for low-income persons.

But in light of James' sense of conviction about the matter at that time in 1978, the decision for Assembly to buy the Jean Lee building essentially was held up for about three months, a period of time when another party might have bought the structure. In an attempt to break the impasse, Harold Bauman took a page from the Friends/Quakers who have a long tradition of operating by consensus. Harold suggested the Friends’ approach of "standing aside" or recognizing the position of the clear majority "with a heavy heart." James was able to accept the decision from that standpoint, and Assembly leadership then moved ahead with the purchase of the factory building in November 1978.

The Making of the Meetinghouse

Looking back 21 years later, in November 1999, James Nelson Gingerich said, "I felt my concerns were taken seriously." He noted that the congregational agreement to purchase included a promise to evaluate "in a year or two whether our having a facility was allowing us to move in the direction of greater connectedness with low-income neighborhoods or whether it was just making us more comfortable." James said in 1999 that he "no longer felt that Assembly was moving in the wrong direction but that in 1978 it was a judgment call." He added that if he was going to "throw in my lot with these people," then he also needed to trust their discernment.

There was, however, a significant caveat in the congregation's decision to purchase the Jean Lee structure and convert it – and this had direct mission implications. The renovated building (at the east end) would include living space for three or four persons, not unlike a Voluntary Service unit. In other words, if the Assembly were to have a building, it would not be a structure unoccupied during the week, but it would be an ongoing presence in a given neighborhood. Several people said in those days that we didn't want to become simply a Sunday "drive in" church. Assembly was influenced in this regard both by Fellowship of Hope in Elkhart and Reba Place in Chicago, though Assembly members never equaled the depth of commitment those congregations made to living in the neighborhood of their church building.

It wasn't difficult in those days to find several young people ready to make a commitment to move into the apartment when the building was finished. In fact, Assembly's decision to purchase the Jean Lee building was contingent on such a commitment. The first residents of the meetinghouse apartment, beginning in the fall of '81, were the newly married Mark and Anne Meyer Byler. A number of other Assembly-related tenants occupied the apartment space until 1987 when the need for offices and an MYF meeting room became priorities. [See endnote.]

Kathy Meyer remembered opportunities for neighborhood contacts while she lived there in the mid-'80s. "We'd go on walks in the neighborhood and say hello to neighbors. We'd be in the yard sometimes; people were hanging around. I think neighbors had a sense of what the church was – and people were happy [the building] ended up being a church instead of something else. We didn't have any block parties, but some people from Assembly did a door-to-door thing at least once. I think a few people visited on Sunday morning as a result." Kathy noted that after Walnut Hill had started using the meetinghouse for its kindergarten, the apartment dwellers sometimes got involved in kindergarten issues – including knocks on the door very early in the morning.

The area on South 11th Street did not quite meet the North Goshen or East Goshen criterion of locating the church building in a low-income neighborhood, but the area bordering the factory district along the Big Four railroad tracks was not as well-to-do as residential neighborhoods a bit farther east. Too, the location had the advantage of being within walking distance of Goshen College and campus housing, unlike possible sites in North Goshen, East Goshen or the Maple City's downtown area. A final "plus" of the 11th Street location was its proximity to the Yokefellows house just a block north; there a strong Assembly presence was maintained from the mid-'70s into the early '80s.

Dana Miller, who has lived with his wife, Linda Schlabach Miller, and their family for more than two decades on South 12th Street two blocks northeast of the meetinghouse, is a builder and skilled craftsman. He gave leadership to the renovations of the Jean Lee building in '79 and '80, as he would again in the '92 and '93 – when the building was re-renovated to make room for an expanded relationship with Walnut Hill Day Care Center (another expression of Assembly's mission) and Faith Mennonite Church (an outreach congregation that had begun using the meetinghouse for its late-afternoon Sunday services in '89).

Assembly's relationship with Walnut Hill Day Care Center began in the early '80s with "kindergarten only"; it was greatly increased in 1987 after a north-side fire leveled the Walnut Hill church building; and it took another quantum leap in '93 when the Assembly meetinghouse expanded from 5,000 square feet to 12,500 square feet – in part to accommodate the day care's need for more space.

Two Personal Addenda

1. When Vera and I were in the process of making our final decision to enter Voluntary Service under Mennonite Board of Missions in Fort Dodge, Iowa, we were meeting in January of '78 for small group at the home of Ann and Paul Gingrich on South Main Street, across from Bethany Christian High School. It happened to be the night that the blizzard of '78 was starting; by the time the Wednesday evening group meeting was over, 5 inches of snow had fallen. During the meeting, I remember that Becky Yoder queried Vera and me rather directly to the following effect: Why do you need to go to Iowa to serve when there are many needs right here in Goshen that could be met as part of Assembly's mission? I recall that in my answer I affirmed what she was saying and agreed that she had a point, but I added that our decision also involved the importance for us personally of "getting off the Mennonite pile" and doing some necessary individuation on a more personal level. But the fact that Becky was asking such a good and hard question indicated both Assembly's level of commitment to mission in Goshen in those days and the relatively high degree of accountability in small groups about such important decisions.
2. When our family (Dan and Vera Smucker Shenk, along with young sons Tim and Jason) moved back to Goshen in 1986 from Iowa, we looked for a house in the "Assembly neighborhood," at least partly in light of the original vision. We found one three blocks northeast of the meetinghouse, where we still live. It's nice to be able to walk and bike to church, but several neighborhood contacts have resulted in few actual church connections.

By early 2004, a Faith and Assembly presence had been growing in the neighborhood around the meetinghouse.

 

The Martin Critique of Assembly Evangelism

At the conclusion of his May 1976 report, Tom Rutschman said that the action of Christians is "more than a humanistic concern for people which motivates us but Christ's love which constrains us" to respond to the admonitions of Jesus in Matthew 25.

Deeply felt ambivalence about evangelism – especially the proclamation variety – and outreach efforts with low-income persons in Goshen continued to characterize Assembly members' involvement in mission.

As alluded to earlier, in August 1980 Gary Martin, who had been a participant in Assembly for about a year at the time, wrote a 48-page paper for his New Testament Evangelism course at Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart. The paper was titled: "A Critique of Assembly Evangelism." Martin took a survey of Assemblyites; he also did some door-to-door work in the Assembly neighborhood in an attempt to determine what effect Assembly's presence was having in the 11th Street area.

In a section titled "Findings," Martin writes: "The Assembly has passed many of the hurdles in becoming an authentic witnessing community. ... The writer is not able to conclude which side of the fence the Assembly would be on if forced to speak to [John] Stott's statement that a church either helps or hinders the spread of the gospel." Martin goes on to say that he found "misconceptions with the Assembly regarding the need for evangelism in Goshen. While most agree that there is a need for someone to evangelize the 'blue collar' or lower-income segments, it is a false assumption to think that most of the middle-class persons in Goshen are members of a church." Martin concluded that "less than half of the population of Goshen are members, and less than one-fourth attend with any regularity. There is a need to evangelize all classes in Goshen."

In a section titled "Recommendations," Martin gave six:

 

• Members of the Assembly should explore to what extent they are building the church of Christ.
• Members need to study and practice the announcing aspect of evangelism.
• The Assembly should work to transcend ethnic and economic barriers.
• There would be value in making worship and small group meetings less intellectually oriented.
• Assembly needs greater openness to certain differing views (see blocked quote above in "Would a Building Help or Hinder Mission?").
• Be challenged by the convictions of church-growth leaders.

Additional Mission Perspectives and Factors

In August 1982 Dennis Koehn, as he was completing a term with the Community Cluster Elders Committee, offered a six-part summary of "several of my key concerns about the mission of our cluster." Rather than engage in hand-wringing about Assembly not being all things to all people, Koehn accentuated the positive in his farewell address to his co-elders:

 

1. We have a national and international mission and not primarily a neighborhood focus. When people leave Assembly they often take positions of leadership in churches around the world.
2. We have a mission to Mennonites who are alienated from traditional congregations. We offer relatively unique opportunities for shared leadership, involvement of women, covenant accountability, small group fellowship, etc.
3. The most recent Assembly membership statistics indicate a rapid growth in the number of college age persons who are participating in our cluster. We have a mission in providing opportunities for these persons to grow and to continue to move into responsibilities of adult life.
4. I anticipate that our cluster will have increasing numbers of children in the next few years. Ministering to these little ones and to their parents is an important mission.
5. Most of our adult members are involved in vocations which have a high intensity of interaction with others. We need inspired worship and compassionate small group life to provide vision and renewal. Here too is an important mission.
6. We live in times of change and uncertainty. Our mission needs to be built on the rock: faith in God's love as we know it in the life and teachings of Jesus.

As touched on earlier by Mary Ellen Meyer, another mission thrust in the 1980s – and throughout many of Assembly's first 25 years – was modeled after the Church of the Savior in Washington, D.C. Interested persons formed groups with a particular mission emphasis. These groups included a focus on South Africa, international students at the college, empowerment of women, sanctuary for victims of Central American violence, and evangelism/community outreach.

From a structural standpoint, mission thinking and planning also were evolving in the early 1980s. A paper dated June 24, 1982, begins as follows:

When mission committees were first formed in Assembly, each cluster had its own committee: Campus Mission Committee and Community Mission Committee. At a certain point the two became a Joint Mission Committee and have functioned this way for several years. More recently the Committee has come to feel that delegating congregational mission to a committee may not be the most appropriate way of working; there is the conviction that mission should be at the heart of the cluster elders' concern.

The document notes that it is "appropriate" for "ad hoc groups to carry out the work" if and when "Cluster Elders feel the need."

The Birthing of Faith Mennonite Church

Just such an ad hoc group began meeting in late 1986 – and continued to gather throughout much of 1987 – to start thinking about the possibility of Assembly initiating a separate congregation to work more intentionally at mission with low-income and unchurched people in Goshen. The formation of the ad hoc group also was partly in response to Tom Rutschman's report in May 1976 when he wrote, "Or do we perhaps commission a few people to form another congregation that has more community outreach?"

Rutschman proved prophetic in this regard because in March 1989 about a dozen Assembly members and attenders decided to move toward establishing this type of congregation. By September 1990 it would be officially chartered as Faith Mennonite Church.

The return to Goshen in early 1986 of Gary and Pat Mierau Martin from Gary's church-planting assignment in Chicago – and as a church-planting consultant with the Central District of the General Conference Mennonite Church – seemed to provide a spark that rekindled smoldering embers.

In October 1986 a group of six people from Assembly (the Martins, Alan and Karen Nice-Webb, and Dan and Vera Smucker Shenk) began meeting to discuss and pray about evangelism concerns. In that same year, a goals committee was appointed by congregational elders to consider an Assembly response to the Call for Kingdom Commitments and the 1995 Goals. A call was given for interested persons to meet for discernment. Those who met, beginning in the spring of 1987, discussed ways of reaching and assimilating people who had no recent church involvement. They explored ways that Assembly could be more welcoming and inclusive in its worship and relationships.

Participants in the spring and summer 1987 meetings included Harold Bauman, Virgil Brenneman, Sue Burkholder, Glen Gilbert, Richard Hirschler, Gary and Pat Martin, Mary Ellen Meyer, Dan and Vera Shenk, Margaret and Tim Thut, Cindy Wilson, and Assembly elders Elizabeth Bauman, J.R. Burkholder, Don Kauffman and Jim Metzler.

It was not clear as discussions started whether ...

 

• Assembly would undergo some sea changes in order to become more inviting to unchurched people in the community.
• Someone with gifts in evangelism and outreach would be hired by Assembly to give leadership.
• Assembly might birth a new outreach-type congregation.
• Nothing would be done.

In August 1987 the congregation approved a proposal that resulted from the previous discussions. The proposal called for the formation of an evangelism small group that would have two goals: (1) to work toward helping Assembly change in ways that would make the church more welcoming to outsiders and (2) to be a small group with the mission of incorporating persons who are not part of a church – with the understanding that a new worshipping community might emerge.

Assembly's evangelism small group started meeting in September 1987, soon joined by several persons who had not been church members. By September 1988 the group had grown enough to divide into two cells. While continuing to function as working groups in Assembly, the groups wrestled with the call to give primary attention to reaching out to unchurched persons.

Eventually, discussions began to crystallize regarding the need for an outreach congregation that Assembly would support in a number of different ways: initial core group, meetingplace, resource materials, and people to assist with Sunday school and in other ways. In all, conversations continued for about 30 months. In March 1989 a group of a dozen Assembly folks, along with Randy and Jeny Grossmann (Randy would become the new church's first pastor), had a Saturday retreat at the Yellow Creek Church of the Brethren and decided to establish a congregation that would come to be called Faith Mennonite Church. Present that day with the Grossmanns were Steve Evers, Connie Johnson, Gary and Pat Martin, Mary Ellen Meyer, Dan and Vera Shenk, Tim and Margaret Thut, and Darin and Missy Huber Yoder.

Incidentally, there was some concern in 1989 and 1990 as a name for the new church was being contemplated. More than once people vaguely familiar with Faith Mennonite Church and its affiliation with Assembly Mennonite Church have simplified things, to wit: "Faith Assembly." That curious combination called for correction: No, we have never been involved with the late Hobart Freeman and the Glory Barn group in North Webster.

The Faith community gathers at 5 p.m. Sundays in the Assembly meetinghouse. Halfway through the hour-and-a-half service children are dismissed for Sunday school. Following the service, the group gathers in the fellowship area for “circle time” (for singing “Happy Birthday” and “God Is Great”), after which a fellowship meal is enjoyed.

Early in 2004 Sunday attendance at Faith averaged 70. Membership is about 50. Approximately a third of the attenders previously had not been attending church. The other two-thirds include ethnic Mennonites and other Christians, some of whom are college students. An estimated 60 or more previously unchurched persons see Faith as their home church. Five Faith small groups also meet on a regular basis.

Leadership patterns at Faith have evolved over the years, though a clearly visible pastoral role has been more pronounced at Faith than it was in the early years of Assembly.

Gwen Gustafson-Zook has been in pastoral leadership since the fall of 1997, replacing Amzie Yoder, who had become pastor when Randy Grossmann resigned in 1994. Deron Brill Bergstresser became co-pastor (half-time) with Gwen (also half-time) in September 2003. He replaced Teresa Dutchersmith, who served half-time from September 2000 to August 2003. A few other persons also have had small stipends as paid staff. (NOTE: I wrote a history of Faith Mennonite Church in connection with the celebration of its 10th anniversary in September 2000.)

Just as College Mennonite Church and Waterford Mennonite Church were instrumental in blessing the birth of the Assembly, in an even more direct way Assembly Mennonite Church spawned what was to become Faith Mennonite Church.

It shall be the task of another writer to summarize the mission history of Assembly Mennonite Church in its second 15 years – from 1989 to 2004.

Endnote:

Mark and Anne Meyer Byler lived in the meetinghouse apartment till the summer of '82 when they moved to West Lafayette. Records and memories are unclear as to who lived in the apartment from 1982 to 1984. Kathy Meyer, another daughter of Al and Mary Ellen Meyer, moved in with Tina Stoltzfus in the summer of '84. Kathy called the apartment home for two years (Tina left when she married Jay Schlabach in 1985). For a while Kathy lived there alone; after her marriage to Paul Reimer she was joined in the apartment in the summer of '86 by her husband. After the Meyer Reimers left in August '86, the apartment was used occasionally for temporary housing, including Central American refugees. During the renovations of '92 and '93 the apartment was converted into an MYF room; the kitchen fixtures, for example, were removed.