Church History

Bloomingdale Mennonite Church is located on land that was historically part of the traditional territory of the Anishnaabe, Haudenosaunee, and Neutral peoples.  This land was included in the 1784 transaction that created the Haldimand Tract, which runs 9.5km on each side of the Grand River.

Jacob “Yoch” and Mary Erb Schneider, along with their 9 children, were the first family to settle the Bloomingdale area, after moving north from Pennsylvania.  Early worship services were held in local homes for several years.  In 1824 Henry Weber was ordained to serve the community. In 1826 Jacob Schneider donated land for a meetinghouse and cemetery, and the first building was constructed.  The church was first called the Schneider Meetinghouse after Jacob, later Snider Mennonite Church, until finally changing to Bloomingdale Mennonite Church in 1960.

The original building was destroyed in a fire, a replacement was erected on the site of the current building in 1872 by Menno Bowman. Several divisions and recombinations in the Mennonite groups and conferences the mid-late 1800s causing some conflict and discomfort in the congregation for many years. Because of this, services were only held once per month until 1906 and had only had a resident minister starting in 1903 with Jesse Martin who was the last minister to be ordained by lot.

The building that was built in the 1870s was built with two entrances, one for men and one for women, which was the practice at the time.  During one division they were replaced by one door, and when the building returned to a more conservative group it went back to two doors again and remained this way until 1951 when some more renovations were done.  At this same time the partitions in the pews were also removed and families began to sit together. A major renovation in 1985 added a new entrance, church office, Sunday school room, foyer, meeting lounge, and nursery room.

Bertha Landers became one of the first female ministers in the Mennonite Conference of Ontario in 1984.  Following Bertha Landers, pastors at Bloomingdale Mennonite Church have been Arthur Boers, Mary Mae Schwartzentruber, Barb Smith-Morrison, and Zac Klassen.

“Bloomingdale Mennonite Church (Bloomingdale, Ontario, Canada).” GAMEO, gameo.org/index.php?title=Bloomingdale_Mennonite_Church_%28Bloomingdale%2C_Ontario%2C_Canada%29.