Working group of Mennonite Brethren in Germany

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Basic data
Official name: Working Group of Mennonite
Brethren in
Germany (AMBD) eV
Management: 1st chairman: Walter Jakobeit
2nd chairman: Alexander Neufeld
3rd chairman: Johann Teichrib
Memberships: Mennonite World Conference
International Committee of Mennonite Brethren
Local communities: 2018: 13
Parishioners: 2018: 1697 (baptized)
Share of the
total population:		 0.002%
Seat: location
Official Website: [1]
Parish hall of the Mennonite Brothers Congregation in Dresden

The Association of Mennonite Brethren in Germany (AMBD) is an association of 13 congregations with a total of around 1,700 members (as of 2018). In addition to the local congregations, the AMBD also includes the initiative pioteam münsterland (church planting in Münsterland) and the social-diaconal work TIKWA (Herrnhut). The community association has the legal form of a registered association and represents Anabaptist - Mennonite convictions.

history

The Mennonite Brethren Congregations arose around 1860 as a reform movement among the Mennonite congregations in Ukraine influenced by radical pietism . The German Lutheran theologian Eduard Wüst , German Pietism and Baptism played a special role in the formation of the Brethren congregations . The first Mennonite Brethren Congregation in Western Europe was founded in 1950 in Neuwied in the Rhineland. It mainly consisted of Mennonite refugees from Russia and Poland. A second parish followed ten years later in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse . Soon more churches were planted with the support of the American MB Mission (formerly Mennonite Brethren Missions and Services). The congregations finally merged to form an association, which in 1970 was named Arbeitsgemeinschaft Mennonitischer Brüdergemeinden in Germany . The latest project of the working group is the planting of a church in Hameln.

Together with the Bund Taufgesinnter Congregations and the Mennonite Free Church Austria , the working group is represented internationally in the International Committee of Mennonite Brethren (ICOMB) founded in 1990 in Winnipeg , Canada . Around a quarter of all Mennonites worldwide belong to the Mennonite Brethren.

After many years of guest membership, the AMBD became a full member of the Mennonite World Conference in 2015 .

tasks

The task of the working group is to network the individual, otherwise autonomous communities with one another and to promote the community among one another. There are joint diaconal-missionary projects (e.g. church planting), youth activities, further training for church workers and regular Whitsun conferences. The communities are also practically accompanied and supported. There is a building fund that provides financial resources for the construction of community rooms.

Together with other Mennonite congregational associations in Germany, France and Switzerland, the AMBD supports the Bienenberg training and conference center in Switzerland , which also has a theological seminar .

Principles

In March 2007, a new creed was decided at the delegates' meeting of the working group , which is based on the internationally widespread creed of the Mennonite Brethren. The congregations in the AMBD, like other Mennonites, practice exclusively the baptism of faith and the priesthood of all believers , emphasize personal active faith and teach non-violence .

literature

  • John N. Klassen: Live and proclaim Jesus Christ. 150 years of the Mennonite Brethren . Lichtzeichen, Lage 2010, ISBN 978-3-86954-014-6 .
  • Abram H. Unruh: The History of the Mennonite Brethren Congregation in Russia 1860-1945 . 2nd Edition. Samenkorn, Steinhagen 2010, ISBN 978-3-86203-004-0 .
  • Peter M. Friesen: The Old Evangelical Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia (1789-1910) as part of the overall Mennonite history . Publishing company "Raduga", Halbstadt 1911.
  • Franz Rathmair: History of the Mennonites in Austria from 1947 to 1987 . In: Yearbook for the History of Protestantism in Austria , 119, 2003, pp. 244–282.
  • Diether Götz Lichdi: The Mennonites in the past and present. From the Anabaptist movement to the worldwide free church . 2nd Edition. Großburgwedel 2004, ISBN 3-88744-402-7 , p. 147ff

Web links

Portal: Anabaptist Movement  - Overview of Wikipedia content about the Anabaptist Movement

Remarks

  1. ↑ Mennonite Yearbook 2019, p. 189. - Church planting work and the like are not included in this number.
  2. ↑ Mennonite Yearbook 2019, p. 189. As explained in the “Principles” section , many free churches, unlike the Catholic Church, do not count children and infants. The number of those taking part in community life is therefore higher than the statistics show.
  3. ↑ http://www.ambd.de/impressum , read on May 5, 2019.
  4. ↑ Lydia Ruff, Art. Arbeitsgemeinschaft Mennonitischer Brüdergemeinden in Deutschland eV , in: Mennonitisches Jahrbuch 115, 2016, p. 149.