Rainbow Mennonite Church

Sharing Community in Rosedale, Inc.

The mission and outreach of Rainbow Mennonite Church is uniquely tied to its relationship with the Sharing Community in Rosedale.

In the late 1960's, the pastors of the Rosedale United Methodist Church, Rosedale Christian Church, and the Rainbow Mennonite Church began meeting together in discuss common concerns about the Rosedale community, an older central city, changing neighborhood of Kansas City, Kansas.  The Rosedale Methodist and Rosedale Christian Churches were experiencing a decline in membership and resources as the result of the flight of many to the suburbs.  Rainbow Mennonite Church, however, had outgrown its small building, and needed to move to a larger facility.  After much discussion in 1970, Rainbow Mennonite and Rosedale Methodist began sharing use of the Rosedale Methodist Church facility.  For the Mennonites, this meant choosing to stay in a lower income area as opposed to seeking land and/or a facility in a suburban area.

With the new arrangement, the Sunday morning schedule included the Mennonite worship service, at 9 am, a joint Church School with all three churches participating at 10 am, and the Methodist worship service at 11 am.  The churches over time learned with activities they could do best jointly and which were better done on their own.  It was never the intent for the churches to merge, and their relationship has probably been most like a federation.  It has always been important to each congregation to maintain its own denominational identity.  But they saw promise in being able to tackle community needs together and hopefully to make a greater impact than they were able to do as individual congregations. 

When the pastor of the Rosedale Christian Church left in the 1970's, the disciples congregation decided to begin worshipping jointly with the Rosedale Methodist Church at their facility.  This made it possible for the Christian Church building to be used for workgroups and other projects, and to house offices for the Community Coordinator.   From 1973 through the early 1990's, the three churches hired a Coordinator of Community Outreach in order to better address the needs of the community.  A variety of Mennonite Voluntary Service workers and VISTA volunteers worked under the supervision of the first coordinator.  Altogether, there have been three employed community coordinators -- all from the congregation.

In the 1980's, the three churches decided to incorporate as The Sharing Community in Rosedale, Inc. in order to facilitate various joint projects, including the ownership of land directly across the street from the church which was then developed into a park for the community.  The Sharing Community continues to be responsible for the upkeep of the park/playground which is widely used by neighborhood children.

In the early 1990's the Rosedale Methodist congregation decided to close, leaving the Rainbow Mennonite Church and Rosedale Christian Churches as the entities of the Sharing Community.  The Rosedale Christian church then asked the Mennonite pastor, Frank Ward, to become their pastor.  This arrangement continued until Spring of 2004, with the Christian Church connected to the Disciples denomination and with its own Church Board, Annual Meeting, etc.  Due to the declining membership of the Christian Church, they decided to close in May of 2004, and all of the remaining members joined Rainbow Mennonite.  

Rainbow Mennonite continues to grow, and to accommodate a larger group of worshippers and more children in the Sunday School, a major renovation project began in summer 2004.  The project includes significant improvements to the facility, including an elevator, better handicapped accessibility, and office space for the agencies we support, such as Head Start and Arts in Prison.  When the renovation is completed, we hope to continue the vision of the Sharing Community and actively pursue means of sharing our facility for the greater benefit of the community.

Updated October 2004

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