In 1959 the ministers and most of the members of three Old Order Amish church districts agreed to merge into one congregation and build a meeting house for church services. The name Woodlawn Amish Mennonite was chosen. Mid-week bible study and prayer meeting had already been started in 1948. This environment created a spiritual awareness which resulted in an interest in missions and other reaching out efforts.
By 1961 Woodlawn was affiliated with the other Amish Mennonite (Beachy) churches.
Today the church supports, Mission Interest Committee (MIC), Amish Mennonite Aid (AMA), and various other missions. Members have served in various missionary assignments, voluntary service and in other special service assignments.
In November 2018 Woodlawn left the Amish Mennonite (Beachy) group and joined the Anabaptist Disciples of Christ affiliation.
Historically, the church traces its roots back to Europe during the Protestant Reformation period in 1525. Suffering from severe persecution in Switzerland for their faith, they were first called Anabaptists after their practice of adult baptism versus infant baptism, and then later named Mennonites. The name Mennonites comes from Menno Simons a converted Priest from the Netherlands who was a leader of this movement.
In the late 1600’s, Jacob Ammon an ordained minister who held stricter Biblical applications on some doctrinal points initiated a group to break away from the Anabaptists/Mennonites. This group went by the name Amish, named after Jacob Ammon.
In 1927, in the United States, in the state of Pennsylvania, a group formed a church to divest themselves from an Amish congregation and became known as the Beachy denomination, named after their leader Moses Beachy.