People of Peace: A History of the Virginia Mennonite Conference

Former Virginia Mennonite Overseer Glendon Blosser chaired a joint meeting of the Shenandoah Valley Mennonite Historians and the Virginia Mennonite Conference Historical Committee in February 2011. This group authorized writing a new history book about Virginia Mennonites and churches in surrounding states associated with the Virginia Mennonite Conference. The joint committee includes members from both historical committees. In 2024, the VMC Historical Committee members are Elwood Yoder, Chair; Simone Horst, Archivist; James Rush, Ken Weaver, and Mary Sprunger.

The VMC Historical Committee and Shenandoah Mennonite Historians signed a Memo of Understanding in 2021. Steve Nolt and Elwood Yoder will co-author the book.

Harry A. Brunk's fine two-volume set of books ended in 1960. Since Brunk finished his scholarly books, new churches and ministries have been established. The second volume is difficult to find and expensive to purchase. It's time to tell the distinctive story about Mennonites in Virginia and surrounding states to new pastors and leaders and a national audience without access to the previous books.

The History Book Committee is fundraising to cover research and writing costs, with about $7,500 still needed as of November 2024. Virginia Mennonite Conference is collecting donations and keeping financial records for the project. All donations are tax-deductible and should be made to Virginia Mennonite Conference, 601 Parkwood Drive, Harrisonburg, Va., 22802,  and designated for the “History Book Project.”

Our history book will outline distinctive features of the Virginia Mennonite story, such as immigration into the Shenandoah Valley, a southern geographic and cultural context, race and slavery, the Civil War, twentieth-century church institutions and missions=, and twenty-first-century developments.

The authors will write a chronologically organized, narrative history focusing on the people and churches of the Virginia Mennonite Conference (VMC). They will also include other Mennonite groups that have departed or joined VMC over time such as Jamaica Mennonite Church, Mennonite Church of Trinidad and Tobago, and others. Nolt and Yoder aim to situate the Mennonite story in Virginia’s broader historical and cultural context and the Mennonite world beyond Virginia.

The authors will tell stories of women and men and include the voices and experiences of minority groups within VMC history. The book will include an index, endnotes, and appendix of selected items, and the book will include photos and captions.

The goal for the book’s release is sometime in late 2025, with the writing completed by December 2024.

 Co-author Steven Nolt is a professor of history and Anabaptist studies at Elizabethtown (Pa.) College and Director and Senior Scholar at the college’s Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies. 

Co-author Elwood Yoder, Editor of the Shenandoah Mennonite Historian, author of several books about Virginia Mennonite history, and former history and Bible teacher at Eastern Mennonite High School, will co-author the book.