An Early Nineteenth-Century Virginia Mennonite Church Ordnung

A manuscript written by Daniel Good, a Mennonite bishop in Rockingham County, Virginia, during the first half of the nineteenth century, presents important elements of Mennonite church life in Rockingham County. The manuscript, introduced, translated, and annotated here, includes a homiletic section suggesting the content and style of preaching, along with formularies for baptism, excommunication and restoration to membership, ordination to church offices, and marriage, and procedures for receiving church members from other denominations. Two original hymns and a prayer are also included. The manuscript documents church life before the developments that divided change-minded and tradition-minded Mennonites, the latter group becoming Virginia’s Old Order Mennonites. The manuscript thus offers a window onto the world that Virginia Old Order Mennonites sought to maintain.