Eighth Street Mennonite Church sits on the corner of 8th and Purl in Goshen, Indiana, a city whose name carries the memory of the Indigenous peoples whose lands it occupies. Founded in 1913 by a group of mostly rural Silver Street Mennonite families looking for a city church, the congregation has called its current building home since 1919 and has been shaped for more than a century by Anabaptist commitments to peace, justice, and discipleship. Today, the congregation is known in the region for two streams of life that run side by side: a quiet, lectionary-rooted worship tradition on Sunday mornings, and an unusually public, year-by-year program of Indigenous repair with the Potawatomi and Miami people of Michiana.
A Hundred Years on Eighth Street
In late February 1913, about a dozen people gathered in Goshen to organize a new Mennonite congregation. Most came from Silver Street Church, east of Goshen, and they began by purchasing a house on Fifth Street that served as their meeting place. By 1919 the growing congregation had bought land at the corner of Eighth and Purl and built the sanctuary that has remained its home ever since. Membership surged in the 1920s, reaching 251 by 1928, much of the growth coming from families who found their way to the new city church from College Mennonite. The 1950s brought a fellowship hall and an education wing; the sanctuary was extensively remodeled again in 2000. The congregation marked its centennial in 2013 with a yearlong series of stories that pulled back the curtain on Sunday morning to tell of figures like Alice Thut and Dr. William Page, the couple who helped found the church after earlier launching the Mennonite Home Mission in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood and serving as the first North American Mennonite missionaries in India.
For decades, the church hosted community meals in the 1930s to retire its building mortgage, helped launch what became Greencroft retirement community in the 1960s, and nurtured Camp Friedenswald, the Mennonite camp on Shavehead Lake in southern Michigan whose beginnings rested largely with Eighth Street members like Bob Hartzler. The church was a member of the General Conference Mennonite Church until 1995, when that body merged with the Mennonite Church to form Mennonite Church USA. Eighth Street continues to support that denomination and its regional body, the Central District Conference, through prayer, finances, leadership, and conference attendance.
Repair Work with the Potawatomi and the Miami
What sets Eighth Street apart from many congregations of its size is the depth and durability of its Indigenous repair program. In spring 2018, the adult Connections class studied the documentary and curriculum of the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery and enacted a hands-on exercise that drove home the experience of forced removal. Over the next three years, study groups for women, young adults, youth, and children built on that beginning, and in March 2021 the congregation voted to adopt a formal land acknowledgment statement. A Pokagon Band artist, Aaron Martin, contributed a turtle image with the quadrants of the traditional medicine wheel as a visual companion, and the framed statement and art were mounted at the top of the stairs just outside the sanctuary.
In 2024, the Church Board approved a revised statement that added the Myaamiaki (Miami) to the Bodéwadmi (Potawatomi) as original inhabitants of the land. The team that stewards the work renamed itself the Indigenous Repair Team to reflect the wider scope, and the revised statement commits the congregation to deepening appreciation of Indigenous history and resilience, advocating for the sovereignty of the Potawatomi, Miami, and other nations, promoting awareness of ongoing unjust treatment, and joining Indigenous peoples in caring for the land. Miami ribbon art, designed by Cynthia Friesen Coyle in consultation with Diane Hunter, Miami Tribal Historic Preservation Officer (retired), now forms the lower border of the revised statement.
Eighth Street is a charter member of the Repair Network of the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery and collaborates with other local congregations in the Repair Network Consortium. The annual fall program has included bus trips to the Pokagon Band Pow Wow in Dowagiac, Michigan; pilgrimage walks along the first two days of the 1838 Trail of Death; an afternoon at the Dowagiac River remeander project led by Jennifer Kanine of the Pokagon Band's natural resources department; a visit from Jared Nally of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma's Cultural Resources Extension Office; and study of the history of Native American boarding schools in Indiana. The congregation has signed amicus briefs supporting Apache Stronghold's fight to protect sacred land at Oak Flat, Arizona and supporting the Indian Child Welfare Act.
After a season of congregational discernment, members adopted a budget proposal that set aside 1.5 percent of the church budget for reparations to African American and Native American communities, with the goal of increasing by half a percent each of the next three years. The first reparative debt payment was divided between the Land Justice Fund of the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery and the Miami Nation of Oklahoma Cultural Resources Extension Office in Fort Wayne.
Worship Rooted in Scripture and the Liturgical Year
Worship is the center of life at Eighth Street. The pattern is structured and thematic: scripture texts come from either the Revised Common Lectionary or the Narrative Lectionary, and prayers, hymns, and congregational responses explore a theme drawn from the readings in ways that illuminate the congregation's mission and spiritual life. Services pay close attention to the seasons of the church year, including Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, and Pentecost, and the liturgical seasons are depicted by sanctuary art of painted silk created by Juanita Yoder, with the center panel remaining all year and the side panels changing with the season.
The worship style is formal and planned, shaped from an intentionally Anabaptist perspective, while still leaving space to share joys and concerns in prayer. Congregational singing is sometimes accompanied by pipe organ, piano, or other instruments, and is sometimes a capella. Hymnody is drawn primarily from Voices Together, supplemented by Hymnal: A Worship Book and other sources, with selections reflecting a variety of historical periods, genres, and cultural backgrounds. Special music, vocal, choral, and instrumental, is offered by people of all ages.
A Sunday Morning Built Around Three Rhythms
Sunday morning at Eighth Street runs in a familiar three-part rhythm. Worship begins at 9:30 and runs until 10:45. From 10:45 to 11:00 the congregation gathers for fellowship time with refreshments. From 11:00 to 11:45, the Second Hour offers nurture classes for all ages.
Adults during the Second Hour can join either Seekers, a Bible study led by class members that meets in Room B1 below the sanctuary, or Connections, which gathers in a rotating location to explore varied topics, books, and Bible studies with presenters from the class, congregation, or wider community. Children and youth classes are offered during the school year, from August through May.
Visitors are welcome in worship. Dress runs the full range from casual to more formal. Children of all ages are welcome in the service, and a nursery and toddler room staffed by two adult volunteers is available for infants through age four when fully staffed. Ushers can provide hearing assist devices, and large print bulletins and hymnals are available.
Children, Youth, and the Venture Club
Outside of Sunday morning, Eighth Street offers a rich mix of programs for children and youth. Venture Club gathers kids in grades 4 through 6 one Sunday a month for fun activities, learning, and service projects. The Junior Youth group for grades 7 and 8 meets on the fourth Wednesday of the month, and the Senior Youth group meets on the same Wednesday evening for Supper for Body and Soul, a simple meal of soup and bread prepared by the youth themselves. Around the table, with ritual and prayer, the group makes space for each person to respond to a question and to practice listening, witnessing, and speaking of God's activity.
The congregation also runs a long-standing mentor program for children in grades 6 through 8. Each young person chooses an adult friend to walk alongside them, offering friendship, spiritual direction, and support, and the mentor-mentee pairings are recognized and blessed by the congregation.
Eighth Street Preschool, Since 1973
Eighth Street Preschool grew out of a conversation at the 1973 Central District Conference meeting, hosted at the church, when Sandy Wingard and Pastor Paul Goering sketched out a half-day program with two classes. The preschool opened on October 1, 1973, with thirty-three children and Wingard and Jane Brookmyer as teachers, and from the beginning included provision for families who could not pay tuition. More than two thousand four hundred children have passed through its doors since.
Today the preschool serves three- and four-year-olds in a developmentally appropriate, discovery-based program rooted in Mennonite values and an inclusive Christian environment. Three-year-olds meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8:30 to 11:30 in the morning; four-year-olds attend on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 8:00 to 1:30. The four-year-old classes use the Tools of the Mind curriculum. Lead teachers hold degrees in Elementary Education or Early Childhood Education, and the preschool partners with the Elkhart County Special Education Cooperative to serve children with special needs. Spanish translation is available, and registration and payment forms are offered in both English and Spanish. Director Emma Dugger leads the program.
A Choir, a Library, and a Church Bus
Music is woven into Eighth Street's life beyond Sunday morning as well. The choir gathers to rehearse at 8:30 on the first and third Sundays of the month, September through May, usually in the sanctuary, and sings during worship on those Sundays. Anyone interested is welcome to join at any rehearsal.
The church library, housed in the church office, holds adult books on shelves near the windows and children's books on the opposite wall, and its catalog is searchable online. All books may be checked out, and the librarian welcomes suggestions and donations. The library is open during weekly office hours and on Sunday mornings.
For members and friends who need a ride, the church bus, equipped with a wheelchair lift, will pick people up at their door for Sunday worship. Rides are arranged by calling the church office by Friday noon.
Welcoming, Safe, and Accessible
Eighth Street's Welcoming Statement names the breadth of the invitation: the congregation celebrates the image of God in persons of every age, ability, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation, and publicly affirms that LGBTQ persons are welcome to participate in the full membership and ministry of the congregation, including baptism, marriage, leadership, and pastoral ministry. The Safe Congregation Policy and Procedure Manual, updated periodically, sets out the congregation's policies and procedures for identifying and reporting abuse, with routine background checks for everyone who works with children, youth, or vulnerable adults.
Accommodations have been made to improve accessibility in the century-old building, and more is still being added. An accessible parking space is marked on Purl Street, and from the front entrance foyer a lift opens to the sanctuary, adult classrooms, and accessible lower-level restrooms. The main entrance on 8th Street is accessible, and greeters are on hand Sunday morning to assist at the doors. A solar array on the roof, whose production is shared online, is one outward sign of a broader commitment to creation care that complements the Indigenous repair work and the congregation's participation in the Anabaptist Climate Collaborative.
The Pastoral Team and Affiliations
Two pastors share the ministry at Eighth Street. Brenda Sawatzky Paetkau, who began in 1994, holds a Bachelor of Theology from Canadian Mennonite Bible College, a Bachelor of Psychology from the University of Winnipeg, and an M.Div. from Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, where she also trained as a Spiritual Director. Julia Gingrich, who joined the pastoral team on July 1, 2015, holds a B.S. in Sociology from Eastern Mennonite University and an M.Div. from Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary. Her ministry connects the congregation to peace and justice initiatives in Elkhart County, including the Re-entry Housing Program of the Elkhart County Jail Ministry, the Poor People's Campaign of Northern Indiana, and the Repair Network of the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery.
Eighth Street is affiliated with Mennonite Church USA and the Central District Conference. The congregation is also part of the Supportive Communities Network, the Repair Congregations and Communities network, and Camp Friedenswald. The Mission Statement commits the congregation to being a Christian community rooted in Anabaptism that appreciates diversity and is devoted to worshiping God and to extending God's love to the congregation, to Goshen, and to the world. With courage and humility, members strive to more fully celebrate the image of God in all persons and to build relationships with neighbors near and far.
Office hours run Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., at 602 South 8th Street in Goshen. The congregation can be reached at (574) 533-6720, at office@8thstmennonite.org for general inquiries, at pastors@8thstmennonite.org for pastoral matters, and at preschool@8thstmennonite.org for preschool information.