John F. Funk

John Fretz Funk was born on April 6, 1835, in Hilltown Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, to Jacob Funk and Salome Fretz Funk.[2] He was the great-grandson of Bishop Heinrich Funck (Henry Funk), who had immigrated to the Colony of Pennsylvania before 1720 on the ship Friendship.[3]

Attended Freeland Seminary (now Ursinus College) to become a public school teacher but taught for only two years in his home community before accepting the invitation of his brother-in-law Jacob Beidler to go, in 1857, to Chicago, Illinois, to join him in his lumber business.[2]

In Chicago, Funk converted, in 1858, to Christianity at a Presbyterian revival and became heavily involved in various church activities and became a close acquaintance of noted American Evangelist Dwight L. Moody.[2]

In 1860, Funk returned home to Bucks County, Pennsylvania, to be baptized in the Mennonite Church and returned again in 1864 to marry Salome Kratz. Also in 1864, Funk began publishing the Herald of Truth.[2]

In 1867, John F. Funk moved to Elkhart, Indiana, with his wife and young daughter.

On January 8, 1930, John F. Funk died at the age of 94 and was buried in the Prairie Street Cemetery.

In 1870, Funk and other Mennonites living in and around Elkhart began meeting for church services in members' homes. A church building was completed in 1871 and the church was thereafter named Prairie Street Mennonite Church after the road on which it was situated.[6]

Funk became a bishop of the Mennonite Church on June 6, 1892, and served in that capacity until 1902 when he was relieved of his duties as bishop.[2]

In 1864, John F. Funk began the Herald of Truth a religious newspaper, published in both English and German. It was the first periodical of the "Old" Mennonite Church.[2] The Herald consisted of a mix of published sermons, short articles of evangelical exhortation, poetry, accounts of journeys, Biblical exegesis, and obituaries. Though the Herald usually published quite a bit of "original" material, it nearly always also included selections from other publications such as the Sunday School Times or the works of Menno Simons.

Funk's publishing company attracted many young men who went on to be leaders in the Mennonite church. These include:

• John S. Coffman
• John Horsch
• G. L. Bender
• H. A. Mumaw

John A. Hostetler argues in God Uses Ink that Funk's removal from his position of Bishop in 1902, increasing competition from the Mennonite Tract and Book Society as well as the Gospel Witness, bankruptcy due to a bank failure in 1904, and finally a devastating fire in 1907 caused the steep decline in the fortunes of John F. Funk's Mennonite Publishing Company.[7] James C. Juhnke argues that many of those factors reflected Funk's unwillingness to yield to a younger generation of Mennonite leaders.[8] In any case, all of the company's periodicals were sold to the Mennonite Publishing Board in 1908.[9]