File XIII-2-15-2-8 - Stirling Avenue Mennonite Church "Risk and Endurance" photograph collection

On 3 August 1924 Bishop Jonas Snider excommunicated 154 members from First Mennonite Church, Kitchener. The question of headgear for women was the ostensible cause of friction. The real cause was the deeper one of church government. Those dissenting were opposed to episcopal authority in the Mennonite Church. What they desired instead was congregational rule. Most of the excommunicated members reorganized as an independent Mennonite congregation. The charter membership was 120. On 3 October 1924 a constitution was adopted, a church council was elected, Urias Weber was invited to assume the pastorate, and arrangements were confirmed for the construction of a church building. A church subsequently was built on the hill overlooking First Mennonite Church and dedicated on 1 February 1925.

The congregation remained independent until 1946 when it joined the Eastern District Conference of the General Conference Mennonite Church. On 1 January 1970 it became an associate member of both the Mennonite Conference of Ontario of the Mennonite Church and the Conference of United Mennonite Churches in Ontario of the General Conference Mennonite Church.

One notable program of the church was the Peace and Justice Centre, created in 1987. Formed out of a Peace and Justice Working Group that began meeting in the early 1980s, the Centre was the first Mennonite peace centre in Canada to be housed in a congregation.