Editing Mennonites (section)

== Membership ==
{{Further|List of Mennonites}}
[[File:Menonite Children.JPG|thumb|Children in an Old Order Mennonite community selling peanuts near [[Lamanai]] in Belize]]

According to a 2018 census by the [[Mennonite World Conference]] (MWC), it has 107 member denominations in 58 countries, and 1.47 million baptized members.<ref>Mennonite World Conference, [https://mwc-cmm.org/about-mwc About MWC] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210305201523/https://mwc-cmm.org/about-mwc |date=5 March 2021 }}, mwc-cmm.org, Canada, retrieved 5 December 2020</ref> Their membership in 2023 included 108 denominations from 60 countries, and around 1.45 million baptized members in over 10,180 congregations. As of 2023, 84% of baptized members in MWC member churches were African, Asian or Latin American, and 16% were located in Europe and North America.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=About MWC |url=https://mwc-cmm.org/en/about-mwc |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240419212710/https://mwc-cmm.org/en/about-mwc |archive-date=April 19, 2024 |access-date=August 12, 2024 |website=Mennonite World Conference|date=29 July 2019 }}</ref>

Africa has the highest membership growth rate by far, with an increase of 10% to 12% every year, particularly in Ethiopia due to new conversions. African Mennonite churches underwent a dramatic 228% increase in membership during the 1980s and 1990s, attracting thousands of new converts in Tanzania, Kenya, and the Congo.<ref name="Kraybill">{{Cite book |last=B. Kraybill |first=Donald |title=Concise Encyclopedia of Amish, Brethren, Hutterites and Mennonites |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |year=2010 |pages=3–4}}</ref> Programs were also founded in Botswana and Swaziland during the 1960s.<ref name="Herr">Robert Herr and Judy Zimmermann Herr, "Building peace in South Africa: A case study in the Mennonite program" in ''From the Ground Up – Mennonite Contributions to International Peacebuilding'' ([[Oxford U. Press]], 2000), edited by Cynthia Sampson and John Paul Lederach, pp. 59–69.</ref> Mennonite organizations in South Africa, initially stifled under [[apartheid]] due to the [[Afrikaner]] government's distrust of foreign pacifist churches, have expanded substantially since 1994.<ref name="Herr" /> In recognition of the dramatic increase in the proportion of African adherents, the Mennonite World Conference held its assembly in [[Bulawayo]], Zimbabwe, in 2003.<ref name="Kraybill" />

In Latin America growth is not as high as in Africa, but strong because of the high birth rates of traditional Mennonites of German ancestry. Growth in Mennonite membership is steady and has outpaced total population growth in North America, the Asia/Pacific region and Caribbean region. Europe has seen a slow and accelerating decline in Mennonite membership since about 1980.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://mwc-cmm.org/sites/default/files/resource-uploads/directory2018statistics.pdf |title=2018 Mennonite Church Membership Statistics |access-date=21 September 2020 |archive-date=1 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201001165733/https://mwc-cmm.org/sites/default/files/resource-uploads/directory2018statistics.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="mcusaMembershipStats">{{Cite web |title=Mennonite Church Membership Statistics |url=http://www.mcusa-archives.org/Resources/membership.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150108072014/http://www.mcusa-archives.org/resources/membership.html |archive-date=8 January 2015 |access-date=5 April 2015 |publisher=Mcusa-archives.org}}</ref>

=== Organization worldwide ===
[[File:Henderson, Nebraska Bethesda Mennonite from SW 1.JPG|thumb|Bethesda Mennonite Church in Henderson, [[Nebraska]], U.S.]]
[[File:San Ignacio.jpg|thumb|Old Order Mennonite children from San Ignacio, Paraguay.]]

The most basic unit of organization among Mennonites is the church. There are hundreds or thousands of Mennonite churches and groups, many of which are separate from all others. Some churches are members of regional or area conferences. And some regional or area conferences are affiliated with larger national or international conferences. There is no single world authority on among Mennonites, however there is a Mennonite World Committee (MWC) includes Mennonites from 60 countries.<ref name=":0" /> The MWC does not make binding decisions on behalf of members but coordinates Mennonite causes aligning with the MWC's shared convictions.

For the most part, there is a host of independent Mennonite churches along with a myriad of separate conferences with no particular responsibility to any other group. Independent churches can contain as few as fifty members or as many as 20,000 members. Similar size differences occur among separate conferences. Worship, church discipline and lifestyles vary widely between progressive, moderate, conservative, Old Order and orthodox Mennonites in a vast panoply of distinct, independent, and widely dispersed classifications. There is no central authority that claims to speak for all Mennonites, as the 20th century passed, cultural distinctiveness between Mennonite groups has decreased.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Mennonite – North America|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mennonite|access-date=9 March 2021|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|language=en|archive-date=2 June 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230602150313/https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mennonite|url-status=live}}</ref>

The largest Mennonite/Anabaptist groups are:

# [[Mennonite Brethren]] (426,581 members in 2010 worldwide)<ref name="GAMEO-MB">{{Cite web |last=Lohrenz |first=John H. |date=April 2011 |title=Mennonite Brethren Church |url=http://gameo.org/index.php?title=Mennonite_Brethren_Church&oldid=131032 |access-date=11 October 2016 |website=Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online |publisher=GAMEO |archive-date=12 October 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161012083341/http://gameo.org/index.php?title=Mennonite_Brethren_Church&oldid=131032 |url-status=live }}</ref>
# [[Amish|Old Order Amish]] (383,565 members in 2023 worldwide)<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://groups.etown.edu/amishstudies/statistics/population-2023/ |title=Amish Population Profile, 2023 |date=2 September 2023 |website=Elizabethtown College, the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies |access-date=2 September 2023 |archive-date=2 September 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230902140849/https://groups.etown.edu/amishstudies/statistics/population-2023/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
# [[Meserete Kristos Church]] in Ethiopia (295,500 members in 2017; over 500,000 attendance)<ref>{{Cite web |title=In this Issue July 2017 |url=https://www.goshen.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/75/2017/09/3In-This-IssueJuly2017Final06032017.pdf |access-date=August 12, 2024 |website=Goshen College}}</ref>
# [[Old Colony Mennonites|Old Colony Mennonite Church]] (120,000 in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Bolivia, Paraguay, Belize and Argentina)
# ''Communauté Mennonite au Congo'' (86,600 members)<ref>{{Cite web |date=January 1, 2006 |title=Church of Christ in Congo - Mennonite Community in Congo |url=https://www.oikoumene.org/en/member-churches/church-of-christ-in-congo-mennonite-community-in-congo |access-date=August 12, 2024 |website=Oikoumene}}</ref>
# [[Old Order Mennonite]]s (60,000 to 80,000 members in the U.S., Canada and Belize)
# [[Mennonite Church USA]] (about 62,000 members in the United States)<ref>[https://www.mennoniteusa.org/who-are-mennonites/ Mennonite Church USA: ''Who Are The Mennonites''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220516130046/https://www.mennoniteusa.org/who-are-mennonites/ |date=16 May 2022 }}, at mennoniteusa.org.</ref>
# ''Kanisa La Mennonite'' Tanzania (50,000 members in 240 congregations)
# [[Conservative Mennonites]] (30,000 members in over 500 U.S. churches)<ref name="2008 CLP church directory">2008 CLP church directory</ref>
# [[Mennonite Church Canada]] (26,000 members in 2018)<ref>Mennonite World Conference, [https://mwc-cmm.org/global-map Global map] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230205233104/https://mwc-cmm.org/global-map |date=5 February 2023 }}, mwc-cmm.org, Canada, retrieved 19 September 2022</ref>
# [[Church of God in Christ, Mennonite]] (24,400 members, of whom 14,804 (2013 data) were in U.S., 5,081 in Canada, and the remainder in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Europe)<ref name="CGCM WhereWeAre" />

=== Organization: North America ===
[[File:alexanderwohl-church.jpg|thumb|[[Alexanderwohl Mennonite Church]] in rural [[Goessel, Kansas]]]]
[[File:Bethel-administration.jpg|thumb|Bethel College, [[North Newton, Kansas]]]]
In 2015, there were 538,839 baptized members organized into 41 bodies in the United States, according to the Mennonite World Conference.<ref name="MWC stats" /> The largest group of that number is the Old Order Amish.  According to the [[Association of Religion Data Archives]], in 2001 there were 80,820 Old Order Amish church members living in the United States.<ref>{{cite web |title=Groups - Religious Profiles {{!}} US Religion |url=https://www.thearda.com/us-religion/group-profiles/groups?D=607 |website=www.thearda.com |access-date=17 December 2024}}</ref> The [[U.S. Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches]] comprises 34,500 members.<ref name="GAMEO-MB" /> 27,000 are part of a larger group known collectively as [[Old Order Mennonite]]s.<ref>[[Stephen Scott (writer)|Stephen Scott]]: ''An Introduction to Old Order: and Conservative Mennonite Groups'', Intercourse, PA 1996.</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=B. Kraybill |first=Donald |title=Concise Encyclopedia of Amish, Brethren, Hutterites and Mennonites |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |year=2010 |pages=251–258}}</ref> Another 78,892 of that number are from the Mennonite Church USA.<ref name="Shrinking Rolls" />

Total membership in Mennonite Church USA denominations decreased from about 133,000, before the MC-GC merger in 1998, to about 114,000 after the merger in 2003. In 2016 it had fallen to under 79,000. Membership of the Mennonite Church USA is on the decline.<ref name="Shrinking Rolls" /><ref name="mcusaMembershipStats" />

Canada had 143,720 Mennonites in 16 organized bodies as of 2015.<ref name="MWC stats" /> Of that number, the Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches had 37,508 baptized members<ref name="GAMEO-MB" /> and the Mennonite Church Canada had 31,000 members.<ref name="MC-Canada">{{Cite web |title=About Mennonite Church Canada |url=http://home.mennonitechurch.ca/about |access-date=11 October 2016 |website=Mennonite Church Canada |archive-date=5 October 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161005095048/http://home.mennonitechurch.ca/about |url-status=live }}</ref>

As of 2012, there were an estimated 100,000 Old Colony Mennonites in Mexico.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Cascante |first=Manuel M. |date=8 August 2012 |title=Los menonitas dejan México |language=es |work=ABC |url=http://www.abc.es/20121007/sociedad/abci-menonitas-mexico-201210071635.html |access-date=19 February 2013 |quote=Los cien mil miembros de esta comunidad anabaptista, establecida en Chihuahua desde 1922, se plantean emigrar a la república rusa de Tartaristán, que se ofrece a acogerlos |archive-date=29 April 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190429070618/https://www.abc.es/20121007/sociedad/abci-menonitas-mexico-201210071635.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=The Mennonite Old Colony Vision: ''Under siege in Mexico and the Canadian Connection'' |url=http://www.hshs.mb.ca/mennonite_old_colony_vision.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130404152020/http://www.hshs.mb.ca/mennonite_old_colony_vision.pdf |archive-date=4 April 2013 |access-date=10 September 2014 }}</ref> These Mennonites descend from a mass migration in the 1920s of roughly 6,000 Old Colony Mennonites from the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan. In 1921, a Canadian Mennonite delegation arriving in Mexico received a ''privilegium'', a promise of non-interference, from the Mexican government. This guarantee of many freedoms was the impetus that created the two original Old Colony settlements near Patos [[Nuevo Ideal]], [[Durango]], [[Cuauhtémoc, Chihuahua]] and La Honda, [[Zacatecas]].<ref>[http://www.gameo.org/index.asp?content=http://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/O533ME.html] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927014327/http://www.gameo.org/index.asp?content=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gameo.org%2Fencyclopedia%2Fcontents%2FO533ME.html|date=27 September 2007}}</ref>

On the other hand, the Mennonite World Conference cites only 33,881 Mennonites organized into 14 bodies in Mexico.<ref name="MWC stats" />

=== Organization: Africa ===
{{Main|Black Mennonites}}

=== Organization: Europe ===
[[File:Mennonitenkirche zu Hamburg und Altona.JPG|thumb|Mennonite Church in Hamburg-Altona, Germany]]

Germany has the largest contingent of Mennonites in Europe. The Mennonite World Conference counts 47,202 baptized members within 7 organized bodies in 2015.<ref name="MWC stats">{{Cite web |title=Statistics |url=https://www.mwc-cmm.org/sites/default/files/website_files/mwc_world_directory_2015_statistics.pdf |access-date=21 September 2016 |website=Mennonite World Conference |publisher=MWC-CMM.org |archive-date=23 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220123005111/https://mwc-cmm.org/sites/default/files/website_files/mwc_world_directory_2015_statistics.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> The largest group is the ''Bruderschaft der Christengemeinde in Deutschland'' (Mennonite Brethren), which had 20,000 members in 2010.<ref name="GAMEO-MB" /> Another such body is the Union of German Mennonite Congregations or ''Vereinigung der Deutschen Mennonitengemeinden''. Founded in 1886, it has 27 Congregations with 5,724 members and is part of the larger "Arbeitsgemeinschaft Mennonitischer Gemeinden in Deutschland" or AMG (Assembly/Council of Mennonite Churches in Germany),<ref name="WCC AMG">{{Cite web |title=Member Churches – Mennonite Church in Germany |url=http://www.oikoumene.org/en/member-churches/mennonite-church-in-germany |access-date=21 September 2016 |website=World Council of Churches |date=January 1948 }}</ref> which claims 40,000 overall members from various groups. Other AMG member groups include: ''Rußland-Deutschen Mennoniten'', ''Mennoniten-Brüdergemeinden''(Independent Mennonite Brethren congregations), ''WEBB-Gemeinden'', and the ''Mennonitischen Heimatmission''.<ref name="AMGD">{{Cite web |title=Mennoniten in Deutschland |url=http://www.mennoniten.de/deutschland.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120428185957/http://www.mennoniten.de/deutschland.html |archive-date=28 April 2012 |access-date=6 November 2012 |publisher=Mennoniten.de}}</ref> However, not all German Mennonites belong to this larger AMG body. Upwards of 40,000 Mennonites emigrated from Russia to Germany starting in the 1970s.<ref name="WCC AMG" />

The Mennonite presence remaining in the Netherlands, ''Algemene Doopsgezinde Societeit'' or ADS (translated as ''General Mennonite Society''), maintains a seminary, as well as organizing relief, peace, and mission work, the latter primarily in Central Java and New Guinea. They have 121 congregations with 10,200 members according to the [[World Council of Churches]],<ref name="WCC ADS" /> although the Mennonite World Conference cites only 7680 members.<ref name="MWC stats" />

Switzerland had 1800 Mennonites belonging to 14 Congregations which are part of the ''Konferenz der Mennoniten der Schweiz (Alttäufer), Conférence mennonite suisse (Anabaptiste)'' ([[Swiss Mennonite Conference]]).<ref>{{Cite web |title=Switzerland |url=http://www.mwc-cmm.org/mwc_map/country/1205# |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160927215228/http://www.mwc-cmm.org/mwc_map/country/1205 |archive-date=27 September 2016 |access-date=21 September 2016 |publisher=MWC-CMM.org}}</ref> 

In 2015, there were 2078 [[Mennonites in France]]. The country's 32 autonomous Mennonite congregations have formed the ''Association des Églises Évangéliques Mennonites de France''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=France |url=http://www.mwc-cmm.org/mwc_map/country/1076# |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160927214645/http://www.mwc-cmm.org/mwc_map/country/1076 |archive-date=27 September 2016 |access-date=21 September 2016 |publisher=MWC-CMM.org}}</ref>

While Ukraine was once home to tens of thousands of Mennonites, in 2015 the number totalled just 499. They are organized among three denominations: ''Association of Mennonite Brethren Churches of Ukraine'', ''Church of God in Christ, Mennonite (Ukraine)'', and ''Evangelical Mennonite Churches of Ukraine (Beachy Amish Church – Ukraine)''.<ref name="MWC-Ukraine">{{Cite web |title=Ukraine |url=http://www.mwc-cmm.org/mwc_map/country/1224# |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160927201255/http://www.mwc-cmm.org/mwc_map/country/1224 |archive-date=27 September 2016 |access-date=21 September 2016 |publisher=MWC-CMM.org}}</ref>

The U.K. had but 326 members within two organized bodies as of 2015.<ref name="MWC stats" /> There is the Nationwide Fellowship Churches (UK) and the larger Brethren in Christ Church United Kingdom.<ref>{{Cite web |title=United Kingdom |url=http://www.mwc-cmm.org/mwc_map/country/1226# |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160927214454/http://www.mwc-cmm.org/mwc_map/country/1226 |archive-date=27 September 2016 |access-date=21 September 2016 |publisher=MWC-CMM.org}}</ref> Additionally, there is the registered charity, ''The Mennonite Trust'' (formerly known as "London Mennonite Centre"), which seeks to promote understanding of Mennonite and Anabaptist practices and values.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Mennonite Trust |url=http://www.menno.org.uk/ |access-date=21 September 2016 |publisher=Menno.org |archive-date=3 October 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161003222114/http://menno.org.uk/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>