The Restoration Movement is a Christian movement that began on the United States frontier during the Second Great Awakening (1790–1840) of the early 19th century. The pioneers of this movement were seeking to reform the church from within and sought "the unification of all Christians in a single body patterned after the church of the New Testament."
The Churches of Christ, most commonly known as the Church of Christ or church of Christ, is a loose association of autonomous Christian congregations. The Churches of Christ are represented across the world. Typically, their distinguishing beliefs are that of the necessity of baptism for salvation and the prohibition of instruments in worship. Many Churches identify themselves as being nondenominational. The Churches of Christ arose in the United States from the Restoration Movement of 19th-century Christians who declared independence from denominations and traditional creeds. They sought "the unification of all Christians in a single body patterned after the original church of the New Testament."
The group of churches known as the Christian Churches and Churches of Christ is a fellowship of congregations within the Restoration Movement that have no formal denominational affiliation with other congregations, but still share many characteristics of belief and worship. Churches in this tradition are strongly congregationalist and have no formal denominational ties, and thus there is no proper name that is agreed to apply to the movement as a whole. Most congregations in this tradition include the words "Christian Church" or "Church of Christ" in their congregational name. Due to the lack of formal organization between congregations, there is a lack of official statistical data, but the 2016 Directory of the Ministry documents some 5000 congregations in the USA and Canada; some estimate the number to be over 6,000 since this directory is unofficial.
David Lipscomb was a minister, editor, and educator in the American Restoration Movement and one of the leaders of that movement, which, by 1906, had formalized a division into the Church of Christ and the Christian Church. James A. Harding and David Lipscomb founded the Nashville Bible School, now known as Lipscomb University in honor of the latter.
Thomas Campbell was a Presbyterian minister who became prominent during the Second Great Awakening of the United States. Born in County Down, he began a religious reform movement on the American frontier. He was joined in the work by his son, Alexander. Their movement, known as the "Disciples of Christ", merged in 1832 with the similar movement led by Barton W. Stone to form what is now described as the American Restoration Movement.
The Gospel Advocate is a religious magazine published monthly in Nashville, Tennessee for members of the Churches of Christ. The Advocate enjoyed uninterrupted publication since 1866 until the COVID-19 pandemic.
Douglas A. Foster is an American author and scholar known for his work on the history of Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement.
Margaret Elizabeth Johnstone was an English missionary and educator in Hong Kong.
The Millennial Harbinger was a religious magazine established by the early Restoration Movement leader Alexander Campbell in 1830. Campbell viewed the magazine as an important vehicle for promoting the religious reforms that he believed would help usher in the millennium.
The American Christian Missionary Society (ACMS) was the first missionary organization associated with the Restoration Movement.
The Christian Woman's Board of Missions (CWBM) was a missionary organization associated with the Restoration Movement. Established in 1874, it was the first such group managed entirely by women. It hired both men and women, and supported both domestic and foreign missions.
Sharon E. Watkins is an ordained Christian minister who became the first woman to lead a mainline denomination in North America in 2005, when she was elected the General Minister and President of the Christian Church in the United States and Canada. She served two six year terms. She preached at the national prayer service on January 21, 2009, at the invitation of President Barack Obama, becoming the first woman to preach at an inaugural prayer service. In 2017, after stepping down from the role of General Minister and President of the Christian Church, she became director of the Truth and Racial Justice Initiative of the National Council of Churches of Christ, USA. She is currently the pastor of Bethany Memorial Church, in Bethany, West Virginia.
The Church Missionary Society in China was a branch organisation established by the Church Missionary Society (CMS), which was founded in Britain in 1799 under the name the Society for Missions to Africa and the East; as a mission society working with the Anglican Communion, Protestant, and Orthodox Christians around the world. In 1812, the organization was renamed the Church Missionary Society. The missions were financed by the CMS with the local organisation of a mission usually being under the oversight of the Bishop of the Anglican diocese in which the CMS mission operated.
Sarah Shepherd Andrews was an American missionary, who served in Japan from 1916 until her death in 1961. She was a key figure in bringing Christianity into the country.
Jessie M. Trout was a Canadian missionary to Japan for nearly 20 years until she left Japan during World War II. She was a leader in the Christian Church, including being the first woman to serve as vice president of the denomination's United Christian Missionary Society. She co-founded the Christian Women's Fellowship (1950) and the International Christian Women's Fellowship (1953), both Disciples groups for women. She also was a writer and translator.
Selina Huntington Bakewell Campbell was an important woman in the Restoration Movement, which is sometimes referred to as the Stone-Campbell Movement. She was the second wife of Alexander Campbell.
Charlotte Fall Fanning worked with her husband Tolbert Fanning to organize and run a series of schools. Ten years after Tolbert’s death she opened the Fanning Orphan School.
Clara Celestia Hale Babcock was one of the first women preachers to be ordained within the Restoration Movement, and was a leader within the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU).
Clara H. Hazelrigg was an American author, educator and reformer. She began teaching school at a young age, and after marriage and removing to Kansas, she taught school and served as principal of a ward school. She generally wrote under the initials of "C. H. H.", by which signature she was well known in the literary world. Hazelrigg died in 1937.
Hymns of Universal Praise, a Chinese hymnal published in 1936, is considered to be an ecumenical attempt at Chinese hymnology from the early twentieth century. According to the Hong Kong hymnologist Andrew Leung, the first edition, HUP1936, established the foundation of Chinese hymnody and is now set as a model of Chinese hymnology.
