"We are kind of an unusual creature," said Larry Miller, president and CEO of Goshen, Ind.-based Everence.

Everence was formed in 2010 through the union of Lancaster County's Mennonite Financial Federal Credit Union and Goshen-based MMA, a member-owned nonprofit insurer. Everence provides a full range of financial and insurance products to its clientele.

The organization, a ministry of Mennonite Church USA, comprises four businesses, Miller explained: the credit union, an insurance division, a mutual fund company called Praxis for investors, and a charitable giving foundation.

The latter service, provided through an affiliate named the Mennonite Foundation, helps members with tithing and gift planning through wills, trusts and so forth.

In all, Everence has about $2 billion in assets, Miller said. Clients need not be Anabaptists, but can be "anyone who aligns with our founding values," according to the organization's website.

The credit union remains headquartered in East Lampeter Township, just east of Lancaster. It has $125 million in assets and nearly 16,700 members, according to the National Credit Union Administration. It has eight branches in Pennsylvania, two in Indiana and one each in Florida, Ohio and Virginia.

Mennonites treat banking differently than the average American, credit union President Kent Hartzler said. For one thing, by and large, they do not borrow to fund consumption, he said.

Seventy percent of Everence credit card holders pay their balance in full every month, he said.

"Quite frankly, we feel good about that," he said.

For credit unions in general, that figure is one-third. The other two-thirds of their members carry balances, said Diane Powell, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Credit Union Association.

"This is totally the reverse of what Everence sees," she said.

Due to its members' minimal consumer borrowing, Everence's loan portfolio consists mostly of real estate and business loans —
75 percent and 15 percent, respectively, with consumer loans and credit cards making up the remaining 10 percent, Hartzler said.

Again, that contrasts with more conventional credit unions. Business loans made up just 3.8 percent of the average Pennsylvania credit union's loan portfolio last year, while consumer loans and credit cards comprised 40 percent, according to PCUA figures.

Everence's mortgages often are "nonconforming," meaning they can't be sold on the secondary market, Hartzler noted. That happens when a property lacks electricity or modern plumbing — impious extravagances for Old Order Amish farmers, but required for Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac to assume loans.

Everence's demographics influence the type of business lending it does. Much of it involves small lines of credit, in the neighborhood of $20,000 to $25,000, Miller said.

One might think Amish and Mennonites would be insulated from the broader economy, but the recession hit Everence's members hard, Miller said. Many of them worked in sawmills or construction jobs, industries that ground nearly to a halt. Land values slumped.

Everence's troubled asset ratio — a measure of delinquent loans versus the amount of capital an institution has — ballooned in 2008 and 2009. It reached 74.5 in December 2009, compared with an industry median of 6.6, according to Banktracker, a website created by Investigative Reporting Workshop, using data from the NCUA.

However, "a ratio measures certain things, but sometimes it doesn't tell the whole story," Hartzler said.

A few sour real estate loans can add up to a high troubled asset percentage, unlike car loans, which are much smaller, Miller noted.

And in Everence's case, the high ratio reflected not only that, but also "our willingness to work with members rather than go immediately to foreclosure," Hartzler said.

Most of Everence's loans eventually do get paid, and the credit union's write-offs are less than its peers', he said.

Credit union members are more likely to make amends, because "they feel a sense of ownership," Miller said.

Even with the toughest cases, "I've been amazed at how many times … we end up getting a full recovery," he said.

"We do everything we can to work with the borrower," he said. "That's a policy that I think speaks to some of the values we have as a church-related organization."

In 2011, write-offs were 0.7 percent, Miller said. For U.S. credit unions, the corresponding figure for the first three quarters was 0.86 percent, according to the NCUA.

Meanwhile, Everence's troubled asset ratio has been dropping steadily, reaching 32.3 as of September, according to Banktracker.

Everence saw 1.5 percent loan growth in 2011, and it is expecting about the same this year, Hartzler said. The company used to see 15-18 percent annual growth, but those days are over for now, he said.

Loan growth for U.S. credit unions through the first three quarters was 0.7 percent, according to the NCUA.

Relatively few credit unions are affiliated with a church, Powell said. Of 533 chartered in Pennsylvania, just 38 list themselves as "religious-based," she said.

Everence appears to be the sole midstate credit union with a religious charter, she said.

Everence's patience in working with families to resolve bad loans has succeeded, for them and the institution, Hartzler said.

"To me, that's what it's all about," he said.