1946 – 2026 Watching Steinbach Grow: STEINBACH’S CHURCHES: A CENTENNIAL SERIES – The Evangelical Mennonite Church

MARCH 6, 1974—This year marks the centennial of the founding of the Village of Steinbach. It also marks the 100th year of Steinbach’s first Mennonite church, the Evangelical Mennonite Church (EMC), now on Main Street.

All 18 families who originally settled here belonged to this one church, then known as Kleine gemeinde (Small church).

The names of these original families are all still household words: Friesen, Fast, Warkentin, Brandt, Barkman, Goossen, Toews, Reimer, Giesbrecht, Wiebe, and Kroeker.

There was no imposing structure as today and the first services were conducted in homes and even in barns. The village schoolhouse, built in 1880, doubled as the first church.

For some six or seven years, the EMC remained Steinbach’s only church. The year 1883 saw the beginning of a second group.

In the summer of 1912, a new building was erected, which was then the largest Mennonite church on the East Reserve. The building, through the years, went through some quite extensive remodelling, but was destroyed by fire in 1960, when a new church building was already in the process of construction.

By 1974, the celebration of the centennial of Mennonites arriving in Steinbach, the congregation of the Evangelical Mennonite Church had grown to 600 members.