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Thank you for taking the time to find out more about Living Truth Fellowship and our community. Living Truth Fellowship was established in Christiana, PA in 1972. We hope that after you look through our website and attend a service, you will consider becoming a more active part of our growing community of faith.
Lead by Pastor Patrick Wilson, Living Truth Fellowship offers many ministries for people of all ages and walks of life who are looking to strengthen their relationship with Christ. We offer many ministries including Children's Ministry, Ladies Ministry, and Youth Ministry.
Church History
The church was originally called Christiana Mennonite Church and began as a church plant from Maple Grove Mennonite Church around 1972. The church grew out of a request from a Quaker church to help them with a children's Sunday school program. When the Quaker church decided to move back into their original meeting house which had been restored, they offered to sell their building at 1 Penn Avenue, Christiana, PA to the group from Maple Grove Mennonite. Thus, Christiana Mennonite Church was established in the community of Christiana. The vision of it's founding pastor, Herman Glick, was to provide a place for the Mennonites who have lost their way to find their way back to the Lord. After Pastor Glick moved on, Daryl Witmer pastured the young work for a short time. When he left the congregation began to look for an older, more seasoned pastor. The overseer, Melvin Naifsinger, with the congregations support called Bob Hershey to pastor the church in Christiana. Bob and Eva were pastors at the Lincoln University Mennonite Church for 19 years before coming to Christiana.
Over the years the make-up of the congregation changed. After Amos Bontrager became pastor in the 1980s, Dave and Rita Kauffman were invited from Hopewell Christian Fellowship in Elverson to lead the church in a more contemporary style of worship. As the church grew it became more familiar with the ministry and gifts of the Holy Spirit and saw many dynamic answers to prayer. Under Pastor Amo's leadership, lots of traditional Mennonite practices were changed; such as from voting to census, elimination of foot washing services, and Baptism by full emersion as opposed to pouring.
After Pastor Amos retired in 1991, Pastor Dean Witmer became the new Pastor. He and his wife, Michelle, came form Lords House of Prayer in Lancaster. The church continued to grow spiritually and numerically, and in the year 2000 decided to change their name to Living Truth Fellowship in order to more accurately reflect the vision God had given them, and to break down the stereotypes often evoked by the name of a denomination.
In 2001 the Mennonite Denomination went through significant changes and required each church to decide whether or not to remain in the denomination. By unanimous decision, Living Truth Fellowship decided not to remain in the Mennonite denomination and joined the Hopewell Network of Churches.
In fall of 2004 Dean Witmer decided that the Lord was calling him out of the Pastoral Ministry and a pastoral search committee was formed. The team met under the direction of Allan Yoder the Hopewell Network Overseer for Living Truth Fellowship. Allan worked closely with the team to find a candidate, first looking within the congregation and then the Hopewell Network. Allan suggested Pat and Mary Wilson who were currently serving at Hopewell Christian Fellowship in Elverson as Associate Pastors for the past 11 years. After Pat and Mary interviewed with pastoral search committee, Pat preached several times, He and Mary met with many Small Groups, the congregation voted in favor of inviting Pat and Mary Wilson to be the 6th pastor of Living Truth Fellowship. Pat and Mary begin serving in November 1, 2004.
