The Bethel Ministerial Association is an organization of Christian ministers. [1] It was founded in 1934 by Reverend Albert Franklin Varnell [2] as a way to allow Christian ministers of similar doctrine to come together. Membership in the association is open to ministers only. The Association is nontrinitarian. They believe that there is only one God, who manifests himself as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The association accepts the Bible as the Word of God, and practices immersion baptism in the name of Jesus. [1]
The churches with which the individual members are associated are all independent of the Association and self-governing. The Association maintains a publishing arm in Evansville, Indiana, Bethel Publishing House, whose publications include the periodical Bethel Link, the Doctrinal Manual, "It Does Make a Difference What You Believe", the association's website bmaministries.com and other works.
The Association maintains a missionary program supporting over 50 missions worldwide. It also maintains a youth camp in southern Indiana called the Circle J Ranch, which ministers to over 300 young people for two weeks in the summer each year, and the Bethel Ministerial Academy. [1]
The BMA is registered in Indiana although its member churches come from Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Georgia, Florida and other mostly Midwest churches. BMA is organized with a board of directors. The current chairman is Senior Pastor Donald E. Horath of Hillside Bethel Tabernacle [3] in Decatur, Illinois.
Apostolic succession is the method whereby the ministry of the Christian Church is held to be derived from the apostles by a continuous succession, which has usually been associated with a claim that the succession is through a series of bishops. Those of the Anglican, Church of the East, Eastern Orthodox, Hussite, Moravian, Old Catholic, Oriental Orthodox, Catholic and Scandinavian Lutheran traditions maintain that "a bishop cannot have regular or valid orders unless he has been consecrated in this apostolic succession". These traditions do not always consider the episcopal consecrations of all of the other traditions as valid.
The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination in the United States and Canada. The denomination started with the Restoration Movement during the Second Great Awakening, first existing during the 19th century as a loose association of churches working towards Christian unity, then slowly forming quasi-denominational structures through missionary societies, regional associations, and an international convention. In 1968, the Disciples of Christ officially adopted a denominational structure at which time a group of churches left to remain nondenominational.
The United Methodist Church (UMC) is a worldwide mainline Protestant denomination based in the United States, and a major part of Methodism. In the 19th century, its main predecessor, the Methodist Episcopal Church, was a leader in evangelicalism. The present denomination was founded in 1968 in Dallas, Texas, by union of the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church. The UMC traces its roots back to the revival movement of John and Charles Wesley in England, as well as the Great Awakening in the United States. As such, the church's theological orientation is decidedly Wesleyan. It embraces liturgical worship, holiness, and evangelical elements.
The Church of God in Christ (COGIC) is a Holiness–Pentecostal Christian denomination, and the largest Pentecostal denomination in the United States. Although an international and multi-ethnic religious organization, it has a predominantly African-American membership based within the United States. The international headquarters is in Memphis, Tennessee. The current Presiding Bishop is Bishop John Drew Sheard Sr., who is the Senior Pastor of the Greater Emmanuel Institutional Church of God in Christ of Detroit, Michigan. He was elected as the denomination's leader on March 27, 2021.
The Church of God, with headquarters in Cleveland, Tennessee, United States, is a Holiness-Pentecostal Christian denomination. The Church of God's publishing house is Pathway Press.
The United Church of Christ (UCC) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination based in the United States, with historical and confessional roots in the Congregational, Calvinist, and Lutheran traditions, and with approximately 4,700 churches and 745,230 members. The United Church of Christ is a historical continuation of the General Council of Congregational Christian churches founded under the influence of New England Pilgrims and Puritans. Moreover, it also subsumed the third largest Calvinist group in the country, the German Reformed. The Evangelical and Reformed Church and the General Council of the Congregational Christian Churches united on June 25, 1957, to form the UCC. These two denominations, which were themselves the result of earlier unions, had their roots in Congregational, Lutheran, Evangelical, and Reformed denominations. At the end of 2014, the UCC's 5,116 congregations claimed 979,239 members, primarily in the U.S. In 2015, Pew Research estimated that 0.4 percent, or 1 million adult adherents, of the U.S. population self-identify with the United Church of Christ.
The African Methodist Episcopal Church, usually called the AME Church or AME, is a predominantly African American Methodist denomination. It adheres to Wesleyan-Arminian theology and has a connexional polity. The African Methodist Episcopal Church is the first independent Protestant denomination to be founded by black people; though it welcomes and has members of all ethnicities.
The Church of God is a holiness Christian denomination with roots in Wesleyan-Arminianism and also in the restorationist traditions. The organization grew out of the evangelistic efforts of several Holiness evangelists in Indiana and Michigan in the early 1880s, most notably Daniel Sidney Warner.
The Church of God of Prophecy is a Holiness Pentecostal Christian church. It is one of five Church of God bodies headquartered in Cleveland, Tennessee, that arose from a small meeting of believers who gathered at the Holiness Church at Camp Creek near the Tennessee/North Carolina border on Saturday, June 13, 1903.
The Missionary Church is an evangelical Christian denomination of Anabaptist origins with Wesleyan and Pietist influences.
The Pentecostal Church of God (PCG) is a Trinitarian Pentecostal Christian denomination headquartered in Bedford, Texas, United States. As of 2010, there were 620,000 members, 6,750 clergy in 4,825 churches worldwide.
The Church of God, International (CGI) is a nontrinitarian Christian denomination based in the United States, an offshoot of the Worldwide Church of God (WCG) founded by Herbert W. Armstrong. It is one of many Sabbatarian Churches of God to separate from WCG.
The Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, Inc. (P.A.W.) is one of the world's largest Oneness Pentecostal denominations, and is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. While it began in 1906 with Trinitarian beliefs, it was re-organized in 1916 as Oneness Pentecostal, thus making it the oldest organization of this type.
Charles Price Jones Sr. was an American religious leader and hymnist. He was the founder of the Church of Christ (Holiness) U.S.A.
The Protestant Reformed Churches in America is a Protestant denomination of 33 churches and over 8,000 members.
Smith Wigglesworth was a British evangelist who was influential in the early history of Pentecostalism.
The Indian Pentecostal Church of God (IPC) is one of the largest Pentecostal Christian Denomination in India, with over 10,000 congregations worldwide. Its organisational headquarters located in Kumbanad, Kerala, India. IPC has similarities with the Kerala Brethren denomination in terms of its beliefs on orthodoxy and eschatology, as a large portion of IPC's founders and early members were from the Kerala Brethren. IPC shares its beliefs with similar churches such as Assemblies of God and Sharon Fellowship Church. However, it distances itself from legalistic denominations such as The Pentecostal Mission. IPC tends to shy away from ecumenism, and some of its leaders reject high church liturgy as a method of worship, instead opting for low church congregational worship.
The "three angels' messages" is an interpretation of the messages given by three angels in Revelation 14:6–12. The Seventh-day Adventist church teaches that these messages are given to prepare the world for the second coming of Jesus Christ, and sees them as a central part of its own mission.
Conservative Mennonites include numerous Conservative Anabaptist groups that identify with the theologically conservative element among Mennonite Anabaptist Christian fellowships, but who are not Old Order groups or mainline denominations.
Barbara Lewis King was the first bishop of the International New Thought Christian Movement of Churches. She was also the founder of Hillside International Chapel and Truth Center.