Ministry (Switzerland, South Germany, France, North America)
Very early in Swiss-South German Anabaptist history the
congregations adopted a form of leadership which gave
considerable responsibility to the bishop-elder in each
congregation. The Schleitheim Confession of February 1527 called
this office the "Hirtenamt" or pastoral office. How early the
threefold ministry of bishop-elder, preacher, and deacon
developed is not clear, but by the time of the Strasbourg
Discipline of 1565 it was well established. It was maintained
into the mid-20th century in all the Swiss, French, and South
German congregations, as well as North American, except in the
Palatinate, where the single pastor system with trained and
salaried pastors was introduced soon after the beginning of the
19th century (first case, Ibersheim in 1813). The plural
ministry was maintained in all those congregations in Europe
which did not adopt the system of the trained single pastor.
Here usually there was also a plural eldership, the larger
congre