Charis Fellowship (Fellowship of Grace Brethren Churches)

Heritage

The Charis Fellowship descends from the Schwarzenau Brethren of 1708 through the progressive Brethren Church, from which it separated in 1939 in a division centered at Winona Lake, Indiana, where Alva J. McClain had founded Grace Theological Seminary two years earlier. The Grace wing emphasized the security of the believer and a confessional evangelicalism, and grew as the Fellowship of Grace Brethren Churches — the body RCMS 2020 records with 536 congregations. It adopted the Charis Fellowship identity in 2018, from the Greek word for grace.

Theological family

Evangelical and broadly dispensational in heritage, with the historic Brethren ordinances kept intact: baptism of believers by triune immersion (three forward immersions) and a threefold communion of feetwashing, a fellowship meal, and the bread and cup — the full pattern of John 13 and the Last Supper enacted in one evening.

Who decides what

Congregational: each local church is self-governing under its own elders, and the churches cooperate as a fellowship through a national conference and shared ministries rather than a governing denomination.

What a first-time visitor would find

A visitor finds contemporary evangelical worship in most congregations, with the distinctives appearing at the ordinances: a baptism by three immersions, and a communion service that includes a real meal and the washing of feet.

What it has always cared about

The Bible as the sole rule of faith and practice; grace as the family's chosen watchword; seminary-trained pastors from the Winona Lake institutions; and church planting at home and abroad through Encompass World Partners.

Its gift to the wider church

The threefold communion — kept alive by Brethren bodies when almost everyone else had reduced the Last Supper to bread and cup alone — offers the wider church a standing reminder that Jesus washed feet and shared a supper before he broke the bread.

Commonly confused with

With the Church of the Brethren and The Brethren Church (Ashland), sibling bodies from the same 1708 stream but separate since 1883 and 1939; with Baptist churches, since local congregations often carry the name Grace Church; and with the Plymouth Brethren, an unrelated British movement.

Range of views inside it

Congregations vary in worship style and in how much of the historic Brethren vocabulary they retain; some carry Grace Brethren in their signage and some simply a local church name.

Where Charis Fellowship (Fellowship of Grace Brethren Churches) churches are on the map

4 Charis Fellowship (Fellowship of Grace Brethren Churches) congregations appear on The Church Map, across 2 states.

• Pennsylvania — 3
• Indiana — 1