Community Churches

Community churches have existed in the United States since the early nineteenth century. Small communities did not always have the population or finances to sustain churches of all denominational types, so community leaders would cross denominational lines and pool their resources to support a single church. A fictional example might be the Walnut Grove, Minnesota

Walnut Grove, Minnesota

As of the census of 2000, there were 599 people, 291 households, and 178 families residing in the city. The population density was 577.7 people per square mile . There were 341 housing units at an average density of 328.9 per square mile...

 church in the Little House on the Prairie

Little House on the Prairie (TV series)

Little House on the Prairie is an American Western drama television series, starring Michael Landon and Melissa Gilbert, about a family living on a farm in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, in the 1870s and 1880s. The show was an adaptation of Laura Ingalls Wilder's best-selling series of Little House books...

television show. By the early twentieth century, with the ecumenical movement in full swing, community churches were ready to cut formal ties with denominations and to demonstrate Christian unity through diversity. Community churches began to understand themselves as post-Protestant and postdenominational

Postdenominationalism

Post-denominational churches, , can be interpreted in many ways, but as applied to Christianity, it is the attitude that the Body of Christ extends to born again Christians in other denominations, and is not limited just to one's own religious group...

.

Community Church Workers

One of the first organized efforts to unite the community churches of America began in the early 1920s. Orvis Jordan of Park Ridge Community Church became the secretary of the Community Church Workers of the United States (CCW-US) and its first newsletter editor. Jordan was later named the group's first president.

International Council of Community Churches

The CCW was the forerunner of the white community church group that merged with a similar African-American group in 1950 to form the International Council of Community Churches

International Council of Community Churches

The International Council of Community Churches is a Christian religious association of ecumenically co-operating and Independent Catholics based in Frankfort, Illinois, in the United States. It is the main organization of the Community Church movement...

 (ICCC). Peoples' Church of Chicago, First Community Church of Columbus, Ohio, and St. Paul Community Church of Shorewood, Illinois joined the Park Ridge church and other churches in this effort.

The use of the term "Community" has also been adopted by those who while holding strict biblical doctrinal principals, shun ecumenism as compromise and simply wish to indicate that they are not a part of any particular denomination or what has become known in certain circles as the "Emerging Church" yet wish to indicate an openness and welcome to the community at large.

Today the ICCC flourishes as a model of living ecumenism: it is a member of the WCC, the NCC, and the Council on Church Union.

External links

• http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,754154,00.html1934 Time
  Time (magazine)
  Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
  
  article] on the CCW-US