Atlantic Coast Conference is made up of 28 diverse congregations affiliating to create our conference family. While more than half of ACC’s congregations are located in southeastern Pennyslania, our geographical representation is diverse, stretching from Boston to Baltimore.
ACC was formed by the joining of churches from an Amish-Mennonite background known as the Conestoga-Maple Grove District of the Ohio and Eastern Conference of the Mennonite Church with several churches formed by people moving through the area with Mennonite Central Committee.
This union has, since its beginning, been based on unity on the essentials of our Christian faith. We also witnesssed diversity in many other areas as a result of our varied backgrounds: Amish-Mennonite, Mennonite, General Conference Mennonite, Catholic, Baptist, and others. We continue to celebrate the different ways that our congregations do ministry in their own contexts while contributing to shared vision and faith as part of Atlantic Coast Conference.
We are an area conference of Mennonite Church USA, an Anabaptist, Christian denomination with roots in the Radical Reformation of 16th-century Europe. It is the largest Mennonite denomination in the United States with 16 conferences, approximately 530 congregations and 62,000 members. The Mennonite Church today is growing rapidly in many parts of the world, and the majority of Mennonites currently reside in the southern hemisphere. MC USA is part of Mennonite World Conference, a global faith family that includes churches in 86 countries. In the United States, Mennonite Church USA includes people who come from many faith traditions, ethnicities, nationalities and backgrounds.
We are a diverse community, and one thing that unites us is how we practice our faith in the world…
- Actively following Jesus is central to our lives.
- We seek to follow Jesus above nationalism, racism or materialism.
- We are a historic peace church. We follow Jesus as a peacemaker and believe that we can practice the way of Jesus’ reconciling love in human conflicts and in response to violence.
- We believe in living simply and in service to others as a witness to God’s love for the world.