Zion Mennonite Church (Mennonite Church), now extinct, formerly called Riley Creek, was founded in 1848 about 5 miles (8 km) west of Bluffton, Allen County, Ohio, by John Thut and a number of his Swiss Mennonite friends. In 1843 Thut had been ordained minister at the Longenecker Mennonite Church. He and his family were making the wagon-trail journey to Elkhart County, IN, when Swiss friends near Bluffton persuaded him to settle in Allen County. But when, at the first communion service, the Swiss did not observe footwashing, Thut's group withdrew and in 1862 erected the Riley Creek church about five miles west of Bluffton. Isaac Steiner, Thut's first helper in the ministry, withdrew when he was criticized for attending his wife's church (the Winebrennerians). Christian Bare, ordained in 1856, left in 1857 to accept the offer of a farm to preach for the Yellow Creek congregation in Elkhart County, IN. David Geiger, ordained c1858, united with the Herrites (Reformed Mennonites). In 1867 John Thut was ordained bishop, but the same year after a tour of some of the Ohio churches he became ill with typhoid fever and died. Abraham Steiner and Christian P. Steiner, ordained in 1869, the former very conservative and the other progressive, could not agree and were both silenced. Abraham Steiner left to found an Egli (Defenseless) Mennonite Church (now Fellowship of Evangelical Church), taking with him the deacon. C. P. Steiner was reinstated and worked patiently to rebuild the congregation. Finally with the help of John S. Coffman and Ohio evangelists he built one of the strongest MC congregations in the state. Most of the members were descendants of John Thut or related to the family by marriage. M. S. Steiner was a prominent minister. In 1892 the congregation erected a new church building which they named Zion.

During the second decade of the present century the leadership of the Zion congregation passed into the hands of instructors of Bluffton College who had resigned their positions at Goshen College. In the late 1920's, after some difficulties with the Ohio Mennonite and Eastern Amish Mennonite Joint Conference, the congregation voted to disband and razed the building. The majority of the congregation united with the Bluffton First Mennonite Church (General Conference Mennonite). A small cemetery marks the location of the former Riley Creek meetinghouse.

Bibliography

Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Scottdale, Pennsylvania, and Waterloo, Ontario, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, p. 1032. All rights reserved. For information on ordering the encyclopedia visit the Herald Press website.

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