P
P. H. Welshimer — fifty-five years in one pulpit.
He preached at First Christian Church in Canton, Ohio, from 1902 until 1957 and built it into the largest congregation in the movement, with a Sunday school that ran into the thousands. He chaired the early North American Christian Conventions and is the movement's pattern of what an independent congregation could be.
Meet them — context →
The shared center — held across the tradition
There is nothing to join.
No general assembly, no roll, no charter, no officers over the congregations. A church is one of these churches because it says it is and because other such churches recognise it — which means the boundary is maintained by a magazine, a convention and a set of colleges rather than by any authority.
Go deeper — context →
Held by most — broad, but not universal
The instrument is a matter of expedience; the pattern is not.
This is the position between the two siblings: the organ and the missionary agency are permitted because Scripture does not forbid them, while immersion for the forgiveness of sins, weekly communion and congregational elders are not negotiable because Scripture shows them.
Go deeper — context →
Cosmos & Afterlife
how reality is built, and what follows deathThe nature of reality
The New Testament church as a pattern, read with the Restoration hermeneutic but without the strict prohibition on silence
After death
Resurrection and judgment, preached directly