The London Mennonite Fellowship began in 1952 as a ministry to students in the newly-opened London Mennonite Centre (England). Mennonites scattered by the effects of World War II also participated. The growth of the fellowship as an English congregation began in 1975 when Stephen Longley, later a Mennonite missionary to Nepal joined. In the following year the tiny fellowship adopted its covenant which, after a crisis, was revised and reaffirmed in 1982. In 1983 the church, which had begun to grow, moved its worship out of the London Mennonite Centre, and in 1988 the church began to take root in another part of North London, Wood Green. Its growing maturity was indicated by its calling in 1986 of English elders to lead the church and in 1987 by its hiring of its first paid worker. In 1987 the fellowship, together with the Evangelical Mennonite Association (the legal trust for London Mennonite Centre), formed the United Kingdom Conference of Mennonites. Membership in 1987 was 33.

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