Community Church movement

The Community Church movement aims to bring together and support local 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 Christian denominations, so community leaders would cross denominational lines and pool their resources to support a single church. 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-in-diversity. Community churches began to understand themselves as post-Protestant and postdenominational.

Origins of the movement

In the early 1920s, people started working together to help community churches in America. Orvis Jordan from Park Ridge Community Church became the leader of a group called the Community Church Workers of the United States.

Later, this group joined with another group to form the International Council of Community Churches in 1950. Churches from places like Chicago, Columbus, Ohio, and Shorewood, Illinois, worked together in this effort. Today, the International Council of Community Churches is part of larger groups that bring different churches together.