About Lorraine Avenue Mennonite Church
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The Lorraine Avenue Mennonite Church was “born” on October 9, 1932, when a small group of Wichita-area Mennonites (comprised of seventeen charter members and eight associate members) gathered together in one of their homes to officially form a congregation. Our first building was a combination church/parsonage which was built just west of the present site (but no longer standing). By 1946 the membership had topped two hundred, and on October 6 of that year the cornerstone was laid for the present church building at 655 S. Lorraine, on the northwest corner of Lorraine and Gilbert. Continued growth in attendance and membership during the following years eventually led to several expansions of the building, including an education wing to the west and an additional lobby, classroom, and elevator to the north.
Today we are a congregation of approximately 390 members, with an average weekly attendance of around 150. As a Mennonite church, we value and celebrate the faith traditions of our spiritual forebears, who placed allegiance to Jesus Christ above all else. As an urban church, we are actively involved in the world around us. We represent a wide variety of professions and pursuits--some of us are teachers, others are students; some work in healthcare or law, others in retail or the aircraft industry. As city-dwellers, we are influenced by city diversity and difficulties, including the challenge of balancing busyness of work and school with the priority of nurturing our faith in committed community. Ultimately, we believe our God-given task is to bloom where we have been planted, to embrace diversity while we hold fast to our identity, to be a unique sign of God’s coming, already-here kingdom.
