Christian Churches / Churches of Christ [Canada]

First congregation organized: Cross Roads Christian Church, Cross Roads, Prince Edward Island, Canada, 1810, by "Scotch Baptists" influenced by James and Robert Haldane of Edinburgh. Since the 1820s when the writings of Thomas and Alexander Campbell were widely circulated and reprinted in periodicals, these congregations have identified with the 19th-c. “Restoration Movement” (also known as, “Stone-Campbell Movement”) which came to be known as “Disciples of Christ.” In late 19th-c. Ontario, some congregations separated over the use of musical instruments into a group known as the a capella Churches of Christ. From the 1880s to the 1930s, Disciples of Christ migrating from Ontario and emigrating from the United States organized congregations in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia. From about 1948, when the Disciples of Christ in Canada first moved toward and, then, declared a formal denominational structure in 1968, 65-70 congregations across Canada did not identify with this structure preferring to remain free, congregationally governed fellowships. While especially in western Canada these congregations cooperate and fellowship with congregations identified with the Disciples of Christ in Canada, a capella Churches of Christ, and people and congregations of several other traditions, they generally tend to identify with the interpretation of the Restoration or Stone-Campbell Movement as exemplified by U.S. Christian Churches and Churches of Christ in affinity with the North American Christian Convention, an annual, non-delegated, preaching and teaching convention. (See "The Movement in Canada", Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2004, pp. 151-163).