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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 CollegeUniversity]] 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.
[[Emmaus Bible CollegeUniversity]], in the persons of Chancellor [[Dan H. Smith, Ed.D.]], Librarian [[John Rush]], and several of the faculty, has been indispensable to this project: the Chancellor with his encouragement; the Librarian with his willingness to put the resources of the library at my disposal and for answering lots of questions; and the faculty who in several ways have encouraged me along the way and critiqued portions of the manuscript at various stages of writing.
Many respondents to the questionnaires sent to them have done much more than provide information about their own assemblies; they have provided assistance in the form of information and contacts for other assemblies. Many people have patiently responded several times to my repeated questioning.
Believers should take no name that tends to separate them. They are Christians, and brothers and sisters in Christ. Thus, these churches collectively prefer not to have a name. They are not a denomination, if by that term one means having a central headquarters controlling the local churches. Nevertheless, a name is practically inevitable when writing about a particular subset of Christians or churches. Many of these linked churches refer to themselves as “brethren.’ Although that term is very general, “brethren’ is the term I will use throughout the book to mean specifically the linked churches under discussion. These churches have a habit of calling their churches “assemblies,’ another very general term; in this book “assemblies’ always means these individual linked churches.
This book is about those linked churches in North America. A convenient directory was provided by [[Walterick Publishers]] of Kansas City (currently by [[Emmaus International|Emmaus Worldwide]], formerly known as ECS Ministries, and is called the [[North American Address Book of Some Assemblies of Christians]].[3] That directory contains a listing of the great majority of these churches in North America and the Islands of the Caribbean.
The ‘brethren movement’ divided into two sections in the 1840's along church governance lines. One segment felt that a ‘circle of fellowship’ of local churches should exist to which those local churches were collectively responsible. Others disagreed with this, asserting that local autonomy is of greater importance, and these are the ‘open brethren.’ This book is about the ‘open brethren.’
Several books have been written about the history of the brethren, but none has been devoted to a history of individual assemblies in North America. Many people have lamented this lack, particularly about the pioneer assemblies, or those with interesting histories that soon may be forgotten.
[[David Rodgers]], Assistant to the Chancellor of [[Emmaus Bible CollegeUniversity]], has felt and expressed this need perhaps as much as anyone. When he first approached me about undertaking the task of developing the histories of assemblies on the North American continent, my first reaction was to point to the book [[My People]], by [[Robert H. Baylis]], then recently published.[4] Soon we realized that Mr. Baylis’ book did not address local assemblies, but rather took a broad sweep, beginning with the origins of the movement in the 1820's in England and Ireland, discussing brethren philosophies, institutions, and personalities, and their successes and failures.
So I was not able to shrink from the task on the grounds that it had already been done. Then I pointed out that it had taken me two years, with my wife’s help, to write the history of just the Colorado assemblies.[5] And I threw up other objections: many assemblies will not want their history told; memories are inaccurate; people and assemblies will be hurt because they have been omitted or because I didn’t get the story right, or because I said too much or didn’t say enough. But these hesitancies gradually faded as I prayed and considered the project. And so at the beginning of 1996, I committed before the Lord to undertake the work.
This historical work seeks to establish a record of the local assemblies, some no longer in existence, that are part of the Brethren movement in North America. There is a particular focus of those assemblies that are sometimes identified as Christian Brethren. Since these autonomous assemblies do not have an organizational “headquarters” to co-ordinate or control their activities, there has been no central record of historical details of their existence or function. In this book, Robert Peterson establishes such a record.
I am personally grateful for the efforts of Mr. Peterson and for many who assisted him by contributing information from various areas. Mr. Peterson has done much of his research in the archives of Brethren material in the library at [[Emmaus Bible CollegeUniversity]], and we at the College have encouraged him in this work. But this historical piece is his work, and we commend him for making a valuable contribution to recorded information about the assemblies of North America. May the readers of this document be motivated to renew their efforts to honor Jesus Christ and the doctrine of the New Testament Church in theory and practice.
Dan H. Smith, Ed.D.
President, [[Emmaus Bible CollegeUniversity]]
===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 University]] 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 Total1941 529 274 8031962 683 354 10371973 716 392 11081977 744 395 11391987 820 431 12511991 831 422 12531995 847 426 12731998 848 428 12761999 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.
New Assemblies Begun in:
Decade U.S. Canada1980s 64 391990s 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.
