The churches of the Evangelical Mennonite Conference are located in five west-central Canadian provinces from British Columbia to Ontario.
The EMC is linked to the graduate-level School of Ministry and Theology connected with Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg.
Kleine Gemeinde means "Small" or "Little Church" in High German, while the Plautdietsch version of the name is "Kleen Gemeente".
Reimer felt Mennonites of the area were too lax in doctrine and piety, and began to hold meetings in homes in 1812.
He was joined by another minister, Cornelius Janzen, and eighteen members, who together recognized themselves as a separate church body in 1814.
Third, to a disloyalty charge, they reaffirmed their submission to the government while maintaining a stance against any involvement with detaining or punishing offenders.
Its final criticism was aimed at sermons and eulogies at funerals, practices that had recently been adopted from Catholics and Lutherans.
[3] In 1870 the Russian government issued a proclamation stating the intention to end all special privileges granted to Mennonite colonists by 1880.
In 1874–75, the main group proceeded to migrate to North America, the more conservative part settling in Manitoba, Canada, and the more liberal to Jefferson County, near the town of Jansen, Nebraska, US.
All together some 200 Kleine Gemeide families emigrated to North America as part of a larger Mennonite migration.
Later, a number of the Kleine Gemeinde went into the movement of Elder John Holdeman (Church of God in Christ, Mennonite).
In 1948 conservative families of the Kleine Gemeinde, all together some 800 people, migrated from Canada to Los Jagueyes Colony (Quellenkolonie) some 100 km north of Cuauhtémoc, Chihuahua in Mexico.
Resisting the radical changes of Kleine Gemeinde in Canada, the Mexican branch kept its name, tradition and identity and expanded to Belize in 1958 and later to Bolivia.
In recent decades, some Mennonites of more conservative backgrounds have moved back to Canada from Mexico and Paraguay and joined congregations (sometimes with the High German language being used in services).
Anabaptist distinctives such as baptism upon confession of faith, non-conformity, mutual accountability, church discipline, congregational governance, non-swearing of oaths, and non-resistance are maintained.
The Life of Peace (Statement of Faith, Article 9) includes, "Instead of taking up arms, we should do whatever we can to lessen human distress and suffering, even at the risk of our own lives."
In The State (Church Practices, Article 9) it says, "Christians should respect civil authorities and pray for them; pay taxes; assume social responsibility; oppose corruption, discrimination, and injustice; and obey all their requirements that do not conflict with the Scriptures."
[9] In 2011, it had 62 churches and approximately 7,200 member of different ethnic backgrounds, including larger numbers of Hispanics and Africans.