New Life Fellowship Church (Grant, Nebraska, USA)
Creator: Henry J. Wiens (1885-1975)
Digitized by Hiebert Library. Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies.
New Life Fellowship, formerly known as the Grant Mennonite Brethren Church, started out as the Paxton Mennonite Brethren Church in rural Paxton, Nebraska.
The church has its roots in the Mennonite Brethren churches of Jansen, Nebraska and Henderson, Nebraska. Several families were looking for land for their growing families and they found it in the Paxton area. They moved around 1918 and started farming in the area. They soon organized the Paxton Mennonite Brethren Church in 1919. They first met in an old building on the south-west corner of H. C. Flaming land. They built a new church building in 1925, 6 miles south and 5 one half miles west of Paxton.
Eventually there were fewer families living near Paxton and more farming around the Madrid area. In October and November of 1963 the parsonage was moved to Grant, Nebraska, after it was decided to build a new and larger church that was more centrally located. Plans for the new church were approved and work began in March of 1964. In the summer of 1964, the congregation moved to Grant where John A. Schellenberg was the first pastor in the new building and it became known as the Grant Mennonite Brethren Church. The first service was held on 14 June 1964 with the dedication service on 2 August 1964. The old church building near Paxton was sold and moved to Roscoe, Nebraska where it was used as a school house in District Seven.
A new addition of Sunday School rooms was completed about 1977. In 1990 a new sanctuary, social hall and kitchen were built. The first wedding in the new church was August 18, 1990 with the sanctuary completed but the kitchen was not yet completed. The first Sunday service was the next day on August 19, 1990.
In 1993 the name of the church was changed to New Life Fellowship Church.
Ministers who have served are H. C. Flaming, John K. Siemens, Geo. H. Jantzen, B. C. Willems, Henry Hooge, and Lavern Loewens. In 1958 the membership was 68, with Edwin A. Schmidt as pastor.
Bibliography
Sperling, Kathy Penner. "History of the Paxton Mennonite Brethren Church & Grant M B Church now New Life Fellowship." 2013. Web. 16 March 2014. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~sperling/paxton.html.
| Author(s) | H. E Wiens |
|---|---|
| Date Published | 1959 |
Cite This Article
MLA style
Wiens, H. E. "New Life Fellowship Church (Grant, Nebraska, USA)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1959. Web. 18 Apr 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=New_Life_Fellowship_Church_(Grant,_Nebraska,_USA)&oldid=115972.
APA style
Wiens, H. E. (1959). New Life Fellowship Church (Grant, Nebraska, USA). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 18 April 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=New_Life_Fellowship_Church_(Grant,_Nebraska,_USA)&oldid=115972.
Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, p. 12. All rights reserved.
©1996-2024 by the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. All rights reserved.