No Withdrawal Symptoms...yet...

[Sandy]

I haven't attended a Southern Baptist church since the first Sunday in August. So far, no withdrawal symptoms. That's the longest period of time in my life that I can remember without having attended an SBC church.

[Blake]

Have you been going somewhere else in the meantime? I think if I ever did decide to give up on the SBC I'd try to join the Missionary Church if the opportunity presented itself. I highly recommend checking it out if there is one near you.

[Sandy]

We've gone to a non-denominational church a couple of Sundays, and an American Baptist a couple of times, and have settled on a Christian and Missionary Alliance church.

[Tim Bonney]

I haven't been in a Baptist church since the middle of June myself.

[Lamar Wadsworth]

I haven't been in an SBC church on a regular basis since 1997. Our church (Heritage BC, Cartersville GA, www.hbccartersville.org, is affiliated with CBF and Alliance of Baptists.

[Haruo]

Is the "Missionary Church" Blake refers to the same as CMA?

[Sandy]

No, not the same group. The Missionary Church that Blake is talking about is a small denomination in the upper midwest with Mennonite roots. If I'm not mistaken, their primary educational institution is Bethel College which is in Mishawaka, Indiana, a suburb of South Bend, and they have a membership of less than 100,000. The CMA is nationwide, though most predominant in the mid-Atlantic. In fact, Western PA is their largest district. Their origins are in the Reformed tradition, theologically conservative, Presbyterian in church governance, baptize by immersion, their most noted theologian is A.W. Tozer, and they have several colleges and theological schools, including Houghton College and Nyack College in New York.

[Big Daddy Weaver]

I think Toccoa Falls College in North Georgia is affiliated with the Christian and Missionary Alliance too?

Several kids my age from the local Christian academy went off to Toccoa Falls to play basketball. Toccoa Falls College is in Toccoa - home of Oral Roberts, James Brown and the late Baptist layman and one-time world's strongest man Paul Anderson (used to be friends with Anderson's grandaughter...Anderson has a Christian youth home in Vidalia funded largely by Baptist laymen Truett Cathy and Nelson Price). Toccoa Falls College provides a number of full scholarships regularly to youth home graduates.

[Sandy]

Yes, Toccoa Falls is affiliated with the CMA. Their higher education system is different than the way most Baptist colleges affiliate with the denomination. There are those which are directly affiliated, including Nyack College, Simpson College in Calif., Crown College in Minnesota, and the Alliance Theological Seminary in New York, and there are those which the Alliance affirms, has a fraternal relationship with, and provides financial support to students who are members of the churches attending there, such as Houghton College in NY, Geneva College in PA, Cedarville Univ. in Ohio, and Gordon Conwell Seminary in MA. They've got a Bible institute in Colorado, where the headquarters is located, and are partners in Alliance-Nazarene University College in Canada.

I've detected few differences between the Alliance and Southern Baptists in worship, theology or passion for missions. There is a bit more Reformed flavor in the preaching and teaching, but much less emphatic on predestination than Presbyterians. The missionaries are much more connected and directly involved in local congregations, each church has a regular "missions conference" at which one of their missionaries presides. There's no altar call or "invitation" at the end of the service. Joining a church is a matter of meeting with the pastor and elders and being interviewed and approved. There is no "transfer of letter" between churches, if you join a new church, it requires a new interview.

The CMA is probably one of the few denominations in America that has seen substantial numerical growth over the last four decades, probably close to 50% increase in total membership. The median age of the churches we've visited is probably 20 years less than the typical SBC congregation. The church we're attending is small, about 120 on a Sunday morning, and at 51 and 53 respectively, my wife and I are among the older members of the congregation.