Dozens of congregations are named First Mennonite Church, but only one can be the first First. Digging into this trivia is easier said than done, perhaps because Anabaptist humility undercuts the name’s bold proclamation. The historical record is foggy.

The first Mennonite church did not call itself First Mennonite Church. That distinction in North America is held by Germantown Mennonite Church in Philadelphia, which got its start around 1690.

However, even the distinction of oldest congregation in America is open to debate, as the members of Alexanderwohl Mennonite Church came in 1874 as a group from Ukraine to Goessel, Kan., and can trace their congregation’s history to around 1640 in what is now Poland.

(From a global perspective, Alttäufergemeinde Emmental in Langnau, Switzerland, is probably the oldest Mennonite church in the world, dating to 1530. Its name translates most directly to “Old Baptizer Congregation.” Muddying the waters further, the national Swiss tourism board’s English website calls it Langnau Mennonite Church.)

The first Mennonite church in Canada is known today, appropriately, as The First Mennonite Church in Vineland, Ont. It formed in 1801 but, crucially, did not change its name to “The First Mennonite, Vineland” until 1955. With many other churches becoming FMCs in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was not the first First.

Today there are at least 40 congregations named First Mennonite Church across the United States and Canada — the main part of the world using such naming conventions. Most of these churches had some connection to the former General Conference Mennonite Church.

There are fewer First Mennonites than there used to be, because some have closed or changed their names.

Mennonite Church USA today counts 27 FMCs and more than one Primera Iglesia Menonita. Mennonite Church Canada has seven, plus a First Hmong Mennonite Church and a First United Spanish Mennonite Church.

LMC, the Anabaptist denomination based in Lancaster, Pa., counts three FMCs in Indiana and Illinois, as well as First Deaf Mennonite Church in Lancaster. The U.S. Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches has one FMC in Clinton, Okla.

One candidate to be the first First is the FMC in Wadsworth, Ohio. Founded in 1852, the congregation started the first Mennonite Sunday school in 1854, hosted meetings in 1858 that led to the formation of the General Conference and was instrumental in creating the Wadsworth Institute — the first attempt at Mennonite higher education in North America, lasting from 1868 to 1878.

But it’s difficult to determine when “The Wadsworth Church” became known as FMC. The First Hundred Years, written for its 1952 centennial, goes into great detail about efforts in Christian education, concerns about a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, tensions surrounding Prohibition and a congregational cookbook’s publishing. The selection of the church’s name, or a name change, is never mentioned.

John Thiesen, archivist at the Mennonite Library and Archives at Bethel College in North Newton, Kan., suggests the minutes from General Conference meetings show Wadsworth’s FMC did not start out with that name. The 1884 GCMC minutes are the first to mention any church with “First” in its name.

That year, First Mennonite Church of Philadelphia is listed as Erste Mennoniten, German for First Mennonite. Before 1884, the minutes know it only as “Philadelphia,” and no other congregations at that time carry the “First” designation.

Now a member of the Alliance of Mennonite Evangelical Congregations, First Mennonite Church of Philadelphia was organized in 1865 and was the first Mennonite congregation to ordain a woman, blessing Ann Allebach in 1911 as a member of Eastern District Conference.

Robert Haywood, a member of the congregation, said it was the first Mennonite congregation located in an inner-city urban neighborhood. When it installed a pipe organ around 1882, it was likely the first Mennonite congregation with such an instrument. The congregation moved in 1963 to the suburb of Huntingdon Valley but never legally changed its name.

“I believe in the 1990s when many churches changed to less denominational names, our church board decided to change the name to Grace Bible Fellowship,” said Haywood, the church’s treasurer, organist and property manager. “It was a name change without any known legal documentation, so the church deed and the church’s 501(c)3 corporate charter are still First Mennonite Church of Philadelphia.”

Social media concurs. The church’s Facebook presence continues to be “First Mennonite Church of Philadelphia.”

Some Mennonite congregations struggle in the 21st century with names they worry are off-putting or problematic for outreach. The attention, time and funds invested in branding and logos stand in marked contrast to decisions of the past, seemingly too trivial to record.

Could it be that congregations long ago were too focused on their ministries and activities to worry about what to call themselves? How often did a church feel the need to distinguish itself from another by staking its claim as “first”? And to raise the first question last, what does Matthew 20:16 have to do with any of this?