Clearwater Mennonite Fellowship · Goshen, Indiana
Four-part hymns on Sunday. Porch repairs on Saturday.
About 140 of us, meeting since 1957 and in the brick building off South 15th Street since 1961. We are slow to make speeches and quick to bring a casserole.
Three ways in
- Sundays, 9:30Sunday school for every ageEight classes, from toddlers to the Over the Hill class in the library. Coffee is on by 9:15.
- Sundays, 10:45Worship and four-part singingNo band and no screens: hymnals, a song leader and everybody. You'll find your part by the second verse.
- Wednesdays, 6 PMSoup supper, October to MarchFree, in the fellowship hall. Bring bread if you like; there is always too much soup.
Who we are
Anabaptists in a brick church on South 15th Street
Clearwater began in 1957, when eleven farm families from two country congregations wanted a church inside town, close enough for their children to walk to. Some of their surnames are still in the directory: Bontrager, Schrock, Kauffman. So are Herrera, Ndlovu and Vo, because Goshen has changed and so have we.
We belong to Mennonite Church USA. We baptize adults who ask for it, we take what Jesus said about enemies and peace at face value, and we make decisions together, slowly, around tables. It also means a great deal of soup.
Every week
Where to find us between Sundays
Sunday schoolSundays 9:30 AMAll ages, eight classes
Children by age, youth in the basement, and four adult classes that range from slow Bible study to the Over the Hill class, which mostly argues about the Colts.
Get connectedWorshipSundays 10:45 AMEveryone
About an hour: singing, a children's story, Scripture, a sermon and sharing of joys and concerns. Communion on the first Sunday of each month.
Get connectedComforter knottingTuesdays 9 AMAnyone with two hands
In the basement around three quilt frames. About 120 comforters a year go to Mennonite Central Committee for refugee families and disaster relief.
Get connectedSoup supperWednesdays 6 PM, Oct–MarNeighbors and members
Two soups, bread and pie in the fellowship hall. Free. About a third of the people who come aren't members, and that's the point.
Get connectedSaturday work crew2nd & 4th Saturdays, 8 AMAges 14 and up
Ramps, porch steps, gutters and storm windows for older neighbors and anyone who can't pay a contractor. Tools provided; lunch too.
Get connectedYouth groupSundays 6 PMGrades 7 to 12
Supper, a Bible discussion and usually volleyball. Every other summer the group goes to the Mennonite convention.
Get connected
The doxology
Nobody announces it. Someone hums the pitch and 140 people stand up.
Sunday morning
No instruments. Just the hymnal and everybody.
Mennonites have sung without instruments for most of five centuries. On Sunday a song leader stands up, blows one note on a pitch pipe, and the whole room comes in on four parts. Nobody is performing, which is why it sounds the way it does.
If you don't read music, sit near a strong alto or tenor and follow along. Children sing with their parents until the children's story, then go to class.
- Voices Together, the 2020 hymnal, in every pew
- Large-print hymnals at the welcome table
- A hymn sing on every fifth Sunday of the month
- Communion on the first Sunday, open to all who follow Jesus
Over the fellowship hall door since 1961
They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks.
Photographs
A year at Clearwater, on one roll of film
Taken by members, mostly on phones, always with permission. The circled frame is the one we'd keep if we could only keep one.
Key
- 1Fourth of July carry-in under the maples
- 2The Hershbergers' rows in the church garden
- 3Framing a ramp on Cottage Avenue
- 4Loading kits for the MCC warehouse
- 5Vacation Bible School, garden day
- 6The building in October
- 7Greens for Wednesday's soup
Want a photo taken down, or a print of one? Ask Lois in the office.
Overheard
Things people have said at the soup supper
I came for the singing. Nobody warned me I'd end up on the roof crew.
They fixed my back steps and wouldn't take a dime. I made them pie instead.
The first church where I've been asked what I think and then actually waited for the answer.
When the factory closed, the Mutual Aid fund paid our gas bill for four months. Nobody else in the congregation ever knew.
My grandmother knotted comforters in this basement. Now I do.
The bass section is three farmers and a retired dentist. It works.
Sunday at 10:45. Sit anywhere; there are hymnals in every pew.
On the first Sunday of the month there's a carry-in lunch afterwards. You don't need to bring a dish to stay.