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===Acknowledgments===
Many people, for many years, have discussed the need for a record of the Brethren assemblies in North America. [[David Rodgers]], long associated with Emmaus Bible College and assemblies in Iowa and elsewhere, is one of these, and is the person who has done most to promote and encourage the writing of this book. He has provided continuing encouragement and has been an invaluable help in identifying and contacting people who could provide information, and urging their cooperation.
===Stats===
The following table shows the number of assemblies listed in the Walterick Address Books for several different years.
Number of Assemblies Listed
Year U.S. Canada Total
1941 529 274 803
1962 683 354 1037
1973 716 392 1108
1977 744 395 1139
1987 820 431 1251
1991 831 422 1253
1995 847 426 1273
1998 848 428 1276
1999 845 418 1263
The Walterick Address Books do not claim to have a complete listing of assemblies. Some assemblies do respond to their requests for information and are eventually removed from the listing. It is often difficult to know of the existence of a new assembly. Thus, some new as well as existing assemblies are not included. For the same reason, some assemblies which have disbanded continue to appear in the listings. However, the year-by-year reporting to Walterick should be fairly consistent, and the results show a steady, if not large, growth in the number of assemblies from 1941 to the 1990s, with an apparent leveling in the past decade.
The booklet entitled African-American and Caribbean-American Assemblies in the United States, 1999 edition, compiled by International Christian Ministries, lists 83 assemblies, of which 18 are not found in the 1999 Walterick Address Book. All of these were contacted by me for information to be used in this book.
A comparison of the Walterick numbers with numbers from the booklet Canadian Links, Local Churches, October 1995, published by MSC Canada, numbers obtained from various issues of Letters of Interest, along with the above-mentioned African-American and Caribbean-American Assemblies in the United States, 1999 edition, suggests that the Walterick lists may be under-reporting the number of assemblies by about 5% to 10%.
From the responses received in producing this book, the number of assemblies started in the past two decades is shown in the following table.
New Assemblies Begun in:
Decade U.S. Canada
1980s 64 39
1990s 52 14
The actual number of new assemblies will be higher than these numbers show. The numbers given in the table do not include the merging of existing assemblies or the moving of an assembly into a new building.